


Salt of the Earth

by Sottovoce_Duvine



Category: Blake Shelton (Musician), Shefani
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-05
Updated: 2021-02-27
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:48:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 25,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25736053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sottovoce_Duvine/pseuds/Sottovoce_Duvine
Summary: He reminds her when he squeezes her hand that there is more than one way to tell someone something.
Relationships: Blake Shelton/Gwen Stefani
Comments: 36
Kudos: 77





	1. Prelude

**Author's Note:**

> Lennox here :)
> 
> I'll just let you guys know that this one was a labor of love. It was surprisingly the easiest thing to write since I finished No Lani and I think that has to do with the subject matter and the setting I've placed this story in. Details came to me rather quickly because I was surrounded by them all the time for these past few months. With that being said, I hope this one interests you as much as it's ensnared me. 
> 
> I don't want to give too much away because much of Gwen's storyline revolves around the mystery of Blake. I will say that they are both singers, both know Adam, just not each other. Gwen has been in an accident, which has caused serious damage to her vocal cords, rendering her almost mute. Communication comes in all forms, and I wanted to tell a story that explores the many ways you can say something to someone without having to necessarily use verbal cues. This is that result. It's a slow burn. With the exception of this one, chapters will be long, hope that isn't a problem :) 
> 
> As always, thank you for tuning in. Happy Reading!

The sounds of the womb are where it started for her. 

Nestled tightly in that embryonic sac, listening out for the sounds of her father’s voice, her brother’s hungry screams, her mother’s sweet singing, lullabies that lulled her into many sleeps with many dreams.

And when she was born, it was the sound of her own voice that came through Gwen. 

Now, her hands grip the steering wheel. The sun is jarring, blinding her through the shades of her sunglasses, and she can hear the muffled, mouse-like sounds of her breath as she tries to hum along to the radio. The music is low, barely loud enough to hear, but she hears it all the same.

The distinct colourations, intonations, found in every syllable. 

Gwen glances at herself in the rearview mirror and sees the metaphorical cage around her throat. The one that doesn’t work anymore except to speak. She sees the bright, blonde strands of her hair, whipping past her beautiful face as the wind takes them with each passing breeze through the car windows. She feels a song at the tips of her fingers drumming against the exterior of the wheel, but she can’t sing, so she wills the melody to go away. 

Looking out in the distance, she sees miles, and trees, and road, and greenery. She sees the mountains to her left and the ocean to her right. She sees all this and yet she still tells herself that there is nothing ahead, that she should be paying more attention to what she’s left behind, or more importantly, what’s left her behind. But when she pulls off the road and into the gravel driveway of her friend’s beach house, she reminds herself that the journey back is just as long as the one forward. Besides, she came all this way to start healing. Going back now would just hurt her more than she already is. 

Still, she never liked Malibu. 

California is beautiful. It’s home. Anaheim is her sanctuary. But anywhere else starts to feel like a pale imitation of the life she’s always worked so hard to preserve for herself. Even the land before her now feels cheap in a way, though none of it is, and had never been. 

The house in front of her is built right on the strip of beach that’s private to the homeowners along this coastline. It sits perfectly, beautifully, prominently on top of the sand. It reminds her of Adam. It’s his house, his property, and it accents the popstar so well, that Gwen feels the urge to laugh out loud. The sound would be garish, unrecognizable, and pitiful. But no one is around. The air is hot and breezy, and the closest house is several feet to her left, far enough away to be irrelevant, really. No one would hear. No one would care. She can be free here, vulnerable.

The hate in her heart won’t let her, so she doesn’t. 

Instead, Gwen opens the car door determinedly, and stands right underneath the sun’s harsh gaze. The heat pounds immediately on her exposed arms and legs, the yellow slip dress she’s wearing only coming to the tops of her knees. She shivers as she leans against the car. It feels like the heat is everywhere but inside of her.

The revelation ruins the beautiful sight of the Pacific, so she gets rid of the thought as she bends back down into the car to retrieve her purse. Her luggage is in the trunk, but she’s too tired to carry it inside. 

As she passes over the threshold of her friend’s own beachside sanctuary, Gwen is struck with color immediately. Everything in the house is a shade too bright, a shade too vibrant. No wonder Adam suggested she get out here. Her depressing mood was no match to the rainbow that threw up in his house. 

She feels another laugh. She buries it deep down in her gut and sets her purse on the red coffee table. The windows are open, letting in a fresh gust of wind that Gwen inhales greedily. She glances out toward the ocean again and smiles. Where Adam’s house is colorful, the sea has nothing of it. It’s just blue. 

She feels blue. She sees blue. She  _ wants _ blue.

The house has no blue in it. 

Gwen doesn’t try to tamper down the laugh that explodes from her, sudden, and loud, and pitiful. She puts her hands to her ears to drown it out.

*

She’s only been at the Malibu house for two hours, and already she feels like sinking into the sand and sliding into the ocean when the tide hits. She wants it to come for her, like a prince, or a rescue team for that sole, lost, hiker. As she stares out a hundred feet ahead at the sea, the wooden pavement of the patio burns her feet, but the sore soles underneath her heels welcome the ache. 

Her ass is sweating and her skin feels soaked, but the attention that’s being paid to her exhausted limbs is like nothing she’s felt before. It’s a different high than making music. One requires every inch of her, her blood, her sweat, her tears, her soul. Here, the sun only wants her perspiration, and gives her nutrients in return. But the sand beneath her feet only serves as a means to get closer to the ocean, and the water doesn’t need any of her tears. Nothing out here requires her presence. In fact, she’s intruding, and if it wasn’t so damn beautiful, she’d leave. 

Her phone vibrates on the table next to her chair, and Gwen squints to read the message as she leans over.

**I take it u made the trip just fine? -Adam**

Gwen picks up the device and taps a quick reply to send back to him. 

**Ur house threw up a rainbow. -Gx**

There’s seaweed gathering at the edges of the shore, and Gwen watches as the birds fly down from the clouds and pick through the tangled green for food. 

**A simple ‘yes Adam I did’ would’ve sufficed. -Adam**

Gwen grins. 

**Yes Adam I did -Gx**

A moment later. 

**Asshole. -Adam**

Gwen laughs and immediately drops her phone in her lap so she can cover her ears. She stays that way for so long that she expects the day to rush past her covered ears like the way life had done so before the accident. 

Everything after had immediately slowed down. Weeks in a hospital bed. Weeks at home. Months in the dark. No tour, no visitors, no music. Everything had stopped. Everything had hurt. 

It was the worst kind of pain because women like her grew up believing everything is as fragile as the throat they speak from. But she knows that most people forget to actually listen to the voice that comes out, sometimes strong, sometimes light as a feather. Regardless, her voice had always pushed her through the most painful events in her life. She’s always had the pipes in her neck to comfort her when her heart went still and her blood ran cold. She always had something to sing about, and something to sing with. 

Her words are still with her, but her voice is a stranger now. She can still write but she can’t sing. She can feel the melodies running through her veins but she can’t get them out. It’s not as easy as spilling a little blood anymore, and now she’s obsessed with finding anyway to cut herself open so that the music flows easily from her like it did once before.

But maybe this was God’s plan. Maybe she was too wild before, could never be tamed, and now no one will ever have to try. 

_ Is that why I’m alone? Is that why I’m so unlucky with love? _

Too many people talk these days, and not enough listen.

_ Was I one of them? _

Gwen thinks she’ll never truly know why God had given her such a beautiful gift only to take it away. But she’s never lost faith in him, and she won’t start now.

Gwen sits back a little further in the chair and lifts her head to the sky. She takes a deep breath and then decides what to do with it. On the drive over, she’d let it catch with the wind, feel it caress her skin before leaving from her body altogether. But here...here she wants to keep every single part of herself close to her for fear that the ocean will take it the first chance it gets. She’s too tired to swim after anything. 

Gwen exhales, letting this one go, knowing there will be another. 

Another comes. 

And another goes.

*

Gwen doesn’t think she’s had a full night’s sleep since the accident. 

At home, she’d sit outside on one of the lawn chairs and count the stars. Here...here she goes for a walk.

The sand no longer feels like hot coal underneath her feet. Instead, it’s warm, comforting, like a thousand tiny blankets wrapping around her red painted toes. She strays just close enough for the tide to lap at her ankles and only goes as far as the next house to her left, the one she saw earlier. 

The lights from the bungalow-style home bathe the stretch of beach where she’s wandered off to in a sort of halo-like glow, but it puts too much attention on her, and Gwen realizes just as much as she doesn’t want anyone snooping too close to her while she’s out here, Adam’s neighbor might feel the same way about her own random presence. 

Her footprints in the sand are stark and small and lead a path straight back to the house. Gwen turns around but not before catching movement in her peripheral vision. She stops mid-turn, glancing to the private house in front of her. 

The blonde sees him before he sees her. 

Adam’s neighbor is standing on his own small patio, bending down every so often to water the plants he’s set at the edge of the porch. Gwen notices his broad frame instantaneously. Her eyes focus on the man’s skin, the way his arms and legs are tan from the shoulders and knees down. She sees the pale complexion of his collarbone where the fabric of his light blue shirt dips slightly as he does in an attempt to move one of the plotted plants over a few inches across the wood. His face isn’t shaved, but the facial hair he’s sporting stays rather close to his sharp jaw and dimpled cheeks. He isn’t even smiling but she can still see the incantations barely hidden by the salt and pepper hair. 

He’s barefoot. 

His shorts are dark swimming trunks, and his curls are somehow the same color. When he finally stands up again, Gwen notices the beer in his other hand, the one he shifts into the palm that previously held the water hose. He lifts the beer to his mouth, and before she knows it, his eyes travel along his beach covered backyard and right onto--there. 

It’s incredibly lazy, the way this man flicks his stare over to her. She expects him to guake at her uninvited presence, say something harsh and cruel about getting off his property, even some sort of physical reaction that makes her recoil from his disgust, but her neighbor does none of that. 

Instead, his mouth stays on his bottle as he takes a deep sip. But his brilliant blue eyes remain on her. When he finishes swallowing, the bottle lays down at his side, his large hand gripping the neck tightly. He uses the back of his free hand to wipe absently at his wet mouth. He drags his eyes along her slim frame, making no effort to disguise his blatant staring. 

Then he smiles. 

It’s not wide, or even blinding, it’s just there, it just is, like it will always be so. 

He smiles like he’s not really smiling, rather like he’s just allowing himself to feel something, anything, and Gwen envies him for it. 

And then her breath catches when he opens his mouth and speaks. 

“Goodnight.” 

He nods once to her, then turns around lazily and heads back inside. 

His voice had been low, a deep drawl, like a hint of an accent.

As Gwen makes her way back to Adam’s house, she thinks about how she should have said something in return. She should have wished him a goodnight as well, but she hasn’t spoken to a stranger in months, since the accident, and she’s afraid she’s forgotten how.

*

Gwen hasn’t flown a kite since she was eight years old. 

She found it in the garage underneath a couple of boxes, and sent a text to Adam about it as soon as she made it back outside, sitting down in the warm sand as the sun started its ascent into the deep purple of the sky.

**Don’t let it carry you away. You’d be missed down here. Have fun, Beautiful. -Adam**

Gwen had smiled when she read the message, thinking how nice it would be to be able to fly amongst the birds and entirely too close to the sun. She’d welcome that burn the same way she welcomed the heat of the sand yesterday underneath her heels. 

The kite now moves above her head in steady circles, back and forth, playing with the wind and taunting her as it does. She follows the breeze where it takes them, and almost forgets where she is. Almost. 

The feather light toy travels across the shoreline and leads her right into the backyard she swore she wouldn’t venture into again. Her mind had been lost in the clouds, her eyes burning with the weight of her gaze against the sky, unwilling to look anywhere else as she imagined herself somewhere far away, somewhere no one would think to look for her, where she didn’t need her singing voice to be recognized or loved. 

The neighbor’s backyard looks different in the morning light. The house sits so still on this stretch of sand, as solid as a fortress, something that could keep her out or lock her in, and Gwen wonders if every wild thing in life that’s never been tamed has moments like these. Moments where they’re afraid if caught, they’ll never be let out again and at the same time, absolutely detest the idea of never being let in anywhere. Gwen wishes there was a middle ground for people like her.

The water rushes in and the high tide comes rather quickly. The kite loses traction and wind, and Gwen watches as it falls from the sky, the string she’s holding pulls slightly, as if to follow it’s other end, the way a soul follows the heart in love. 

A dog barks from the distance, and startles Gwen as it rushes toward her at a speed that would rival the ocean’s roaring waves. A whistle halts the beagle suddenly, and she looks up to see the man from last night coming out onto his porch. 

He’s tall. 

It’s something she never took notice of yesterday. Too tall. Incredibly and intimidatingly so. 

“Betty, c’mere.” He orders the dog, never raising his voice. 

Betty runs back to her owner lazily, as if she’s spent too much time watching how the man moves, how he walks and adjusts to the pace of his life, and sees the benefit of slowing down, too.

The man reaches down to scratch behind the beagle’s dark ears. He straightens after several minutes, impressively blue eyes straying back to her. He walks a couple steps down the patio and onto the sand.

He’s barefoot once again. Dressed in grey swimming trunks and a black shirt this time. His hair is wet, and his skin holds that freshly showered glow to it. 

Gwen holds her breath as he slowly draws closer. He stops at a respectable distance, and Gwen is thankful until he opens his mouth. 

“Mornin’.” 

Panic rises in her gut, makes its way to her broken throat and unused tongue. She can speak. It will sound hoarse, and rough, and ugly. But she hasn’t lost the ability to make words. She just won’t ever be able to sing them the same way again. She’ll sound so unlike herself, if she speaks to him now. He’ll notice. Even if he isn’t familiar with her name and celebrity, and by the way he stares at her, she guesses that he isn’t, he’ll still recognize that something is wrong with her, and that scares Gwen most of all. 

She nods, trying for a smile and knowing it ended up anything but. 

He doesn’t seem deterred. His eyes smile and he returns her nod. In a flash, he’s turning around and whistling for Betty again, giving the pup a nod into the direction of the next house a couple of yards away down the coastline.

A walk. 

They’re going on a walk. The reality of it makes Gwen want to come with. 

She realizes she’s lonely. There’s no one at the house, she can’t talk to herself to fill the silence in the air, and music only depresses her more. She doesn’t want to hear other voices singing songs she’ll never be able to again, and she doesn’t know how to play any instruments except for a couple of songs on the guitar and a few on the piano. 

For a musician, Adam didn’t keep any instruments out here. Maybe this place is an escape from the industry all together. Whatever it is, it had an empty house, a beautiful beach, and this man and his dog. 

Gwen watches them go, feeling a tug inside of her, as if she tied a string around the two of them and felt them pulling away the farther they got down the beach. She snips the thread when she gathers the pitiful looking kite from the ground and makes her way back to Adam’s paradise. 

The sand beneath her feet burns again, making the journey back feel a lot like purgatory.

*

The missed calls on her phone remain right where they are. 

She only answers Adam. 

_ Adam. _

Adam who was driving the car. Adam who pulled her out of the wreckage. Adam who broke his hand but would be able to sing the pain away. Adam who stayed with her everynight in the hospital until she was ready to go home. Adam who stayed away when she couldn’t bear to look at him. Adam who gave her the keys to this little Malibu house on this private strip of beach, who told her to start the healing here, selfishly knowing that her journey to recovery was in part because of him, and now began because of him, too. 

Adam, her friend. Adam, who might have been more but now there was too much brokenness between them for there to ever be. 

She sent him a quick message after lunch, knowing he’d pass it along to all concerned parties. 

She didn’t want to be in touch with the outside world while she was here. She just wanted the sound of the waves, the heat of the sun, and the emptiness of the house to be the only things that reached out to her now. 

Putting the last of her dishes in the sink, Gwen ventures out to the shoreline again, hating the way she strays so close to the water but refuses to get in. She can swim. She’s not afraid of drowning. She’s just hesitant about getting wet, as if that will somehow make her clean, wash away the last five months, even absolve all her grief. Even more than that, she’s afraid the water will only make her feel more soiled. She’s afraid of how she might feel emerging from the waves. Will she be beaten even more than she is already? Will her limbs betray her much the same way her vocal chords have? Will everything inside of her rebel against the force of the ocean in a way it hadn’t during the accident? 

The water stings all of a sudden, and Gwen withdraws from the shore. She keeps her head down, and her guard up. Her mind practices going numb. After the accident, she had to shut everything off, keep everything out, if only to survive the initial shock. She’s only gotten better at it as the months went on. Out here it’s surprisingly easier to fold into herself. The backdrop is white noise and absolutely gorgeous. If she finds herself needing to focus on something, she’ll focus on the boats docked too far out in the sea to make out there make and model. Her eyes will zero in on a bird flying too close to the glinting water, trailing its tailens along the wet surface like a tear does as it slides down a warm cheek.

Gwen keeps at it until she wanders too far down the coastline, having passed six houses on her way. Her teeth grind slightly, and her feet ache. Her endurance is tested as she turns around and makes her way back. 

Of course he’s outside when she passes by his house.

He hasn’t changed since she first saw him this morning. Betty is nowhere in sight, and her neighbor is standing in the sand, facing the water, sipping a beer, facing the ocean. If she was crazy, she’d insist that he was waiting for her, as if he saw her pass his house when she first started on her walk and thought it best to make sure she got back to the house safely.

Gwen nears him with a child’s caution trying to decide if it was okay to cross the street or not. He doesn’t say anything as she approaches, and she’s instantly thankful again because it means she won’t have to say anything in return. 

His eyes follow the path of her body, starting with her toes, ending with her eyes. He looks over the top of her head and finds the blue of the ocean with the blue of his hues and she wonders if he knows that both are the same color, the same shade, and the same likeness. 

Gwen turns around and sees what he sees. 

The sunset. 

How long has she been out here? How long was her walk? 

Gwen’s never watched the sun disappear from the sky with someone with blue eyes before. She feels a song creep from the sand and into her toes, travelling through her feet, higher up her legs. From there the veins flow quickly, leading to every part of her body. 

It almost feels calm in a way. The waves drown out the melody but she can still hear the faint lyrics in her mind. 

“Blake.” 

The name comes from behind her. His voice is deep but so quiet. Gwen smiles at the way he chose to introduce himself to her. He’s a strong presence but he’s not intrusive. Solid, and yet very malleable. 

He takes the step forward to stand next to her, both of them watching the endless rolling waves creeping further to swallow the sun whole, making the horizon come alive. 

“It’s nice to meet you…” He says, in that feather light way of his. 

The end of his declaration remains open, and she knows he’s expecting her to finish it with a flourish of her own name. 

Her eyes land on him. He doesn’t face her, even though he maybe wants to. She can see it in the way he tucks his free hand in the pocket of his shorts, the way his jaw holds the slightest tick. He remains forward, staring at the sea before them, as if knowing that it would be easier for her to talk to him if he didn’t look her in the eyes, see the way she might struggle with her words, with her voice. 

He doesn’t know her, doesn’t know what happened to her, but he can somehow still read her like a book, like a sheet of music that’s been left out in the sand for too long, baring the traces of water and salt.

She covers her ears. 

She doesn’t want to hear the name roll off her lips. She can’t bear to see his reaction and hear herself at the same time. It would break her, crumble her to pieces, drown her beneath this cold and unforgiving earth she’s been exiled to. 

“Gwen.” 

She feels the way her name rolls off her tongue. Can taste the bitterness that lace around the letters like seaweed. The vibrations rock through her shattered neck, still bearing the scars of the accident, fading too slowly, reminding her all too quickly in the mornings. 

His head slowly turns to face her, and she holds her breath, forgetting that there will be another one after it. 

“Gwen.” He finishes, and she can’t hear it because her hands are still covering her ears. 

She presses them back down to her sides. She knows it’s horrible. The way she sounds, the cracks, the hoarseness, the rough and abrupt way her voice just quits out on her. He has to be frightened or at least disgusted. 

“Gwen.” He repeats, and the breath she’s holding is suddenly let go, and she realizes he’s said her name a second time because she didn’t hear it the first, and the first had been said in much the same way as its successor, and he wants her to hear it. He says it like that split second, after a crash but before the pain. Where you accept the inevitable but can appreciate the moment where you don’t have to feel the reality of it. 

Talking again, that is inevitable. But he doesn’t need her to talk to him right now, not even in the near distant future. He sees now that she’s been afflicted. He sees that she’s not whole, that some part of her, a part that is clearly very important to her, is now broken. So he isn’t going to force her to live in that reality just yet. Where regardless of her state of voice, people will still expect her to  _ talk  _ to them. 

There are other ways to communicate than the verbal, and he shows her this as he exhales, slumps his shoulders just a bit, just enough to bring that unbearable height to a tolerable distance between them, and smiles at her, handsomely, saying everything while saying nothing. 

Gwen can’t believe this stranger. 

This Blake. 

He must know what it means to lose your voice, because he doesn’t push her to help her find her own. He simply listens, and that is...that is new. 

He shuffles slightly next to her, and she can tell that he has to go. Maybe take Betty for another walk, maybe start on dinner, maybe even just get back to being alone.

Isn’t that what people buy houses out here for?

It doesn’t matter. He has to go, and she can’t stay, and the string she thought she cut earlier is back, winding around her ankles, latching onto his.

He’s given her something today. She doesn’t exactly know what it is but it's there, just under the surface, not yet drowning, but not anywhere near swimming. So before he turns to leave, she catches his wrist. 

It’s wide, and thick, and solid, just like him, and the hairs there caress her fingertips. She holds him still, and he keeps her steady as she says, quietly, ugly, damaged. 

“Nice…” 

_ Nice to meet you, too. _

It’s there in her eyes, just not in her voice, but he reminds her when he squeezes her hand that there is more than one way to tell someone something. And the way his eyes flash as they stare down at her throat for several seconds allows him to tell her that the dark, dusty quality of her voice is still sensational. 

He leaves her with that as he heads back inside his home. 

She takes a deep breath, and releases it as soon as it comes. For the first time since the accident, she looks forward to the next breath. 

And the one after that.


	2. Down the Summer Stream

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song Gwen plays is the piano cover of No Doubt's "Running" a.k.a my all time favorite No Doubt song. :)   
> I have yet to get to replying to your comments but I will soon. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. Any feedback is always appreciative. You guys are the best. 
> 
> As always, Happy Reading!   
> \--Lennox

There’s an unusual smell to the ocean, a brashness to the waves. 

Gwen comes up with a million realizations as she stares out and ahead. The only one she cares about is the one that came to visit her in that hospital bed months ago. 

_ All the music inside me spoils now because….my wing’s been clipped. Singing is flying and flying is living. I have no voice, no wings, no purpose.  _

The ocean is beautiful, and Gwen forces herself to remember that there is more to life than a melody. But it’s hard. It’s extremely difficult when all her life, she’s believed that she’ll be okay without sight, without smell, and touch. She needed none of that when she could  _ hear _ . When the sounds between always and forever were in her heart. 

She wonders what a miracle her life would be if she ever got her voice back. She thinks she’d run away with it, but not before running next door, first, to tell the neighbor she now calls Blake, the one who hears her without words, speaks to her without sound. She might even sing for him, not about what sorrow there is between her and the ocean, but about what hope leads them back to the shore every night. 

The music is changing.

She can feel it out here.

Her thoughts are wet, cold, unforgiving. And her words...the words she hears but don’t say, they’re dry, salty, weak. The melody is frail and open ended, much like her future. 

She’ll buckle underneath this truth if she doesn’t do something about it. 

Isn’t she supposed to be healing out here? 

_ I have to find my voice.  _

No. 

_ I have to make my voice something else and make something else my voice. _

That’s when she catches sight of the piano by accident. 

The voices she hears in the front of Blake’s yard are loud. Considering his home is several yards away from Adam’s, Gwen’s interest is successfully piqued from where she’s sunbathing on the back patio.

She barely rounds the side of the house in her yellow bathing suit when she sees it. 

Yamaha. C2. Mahogany. Parlor Grand. 

All those years paying attention to what her father did for a living, what he brought home at the end of the day, the first piano they ever owned, the first instrument Eric taught himself how to play. 

Gwen’s never been much of a musician. She remembers learning how to play the guitar decades ago, just enough to write a song, just enough to create “Simple Kind of Life” and a few others that never saw the light of day. The piano playing is a recent thing for her. It started after the accident, like so many things, and just stuck with her. 

Gwen likes the way the keys on a piano sound, how the metal rods are all part of a whole, and she imagines herself as the entire thing. She isn’t just a voice, she knows this. She’s many things, and many things are her. Like that beautiful instrument that now resides in his home, for whatever reason, and for whoever needs it, it wants to be played, touched, felt,  _ moved.  _

The piano is her. 

How long can she go without making music? How long can she survive without someone playing her keys, touching on all her right notes, feeling her cool exterior, warming it up as they create, moving her bits and pieces around until she’s another beautiful song, flooding the heart, feeding the veins. 

_ This is something I can’t live without.  _

He doesn’t even know what he’s done, what he’s awakened inside of her by bringing that piano into his home. It starts with the wounds around her neck, the same ones that still feel raw, but for the first time since the pain and the shock, Gwen doesn’t see the raised skin as something done to her, rather, something now a part of her. 

Healing is a fickle beast.

So Gwen leaves him and the piano alone. 

She goes for walks, runs, even does some yoga down by the shore. She stays within the confines of Adam’s property or travels to the right instead of the left when she needs some distance from the house. 

The phone calls don’t stop. But everyday she sends a text to Adam’s phone, letting him know she’s fine. He wants to call but knows she won’t say anything on the other end of the line if he did, knows his voice wouldn’t be welcomed, only his words, so he never does. 

She keeps up with the routine. It isn’t hard. Even easier to ignore the therapy exercises she’s supposed to be doing twice a day to improve her speaking voice, and settles for the one in her head while she’s out for her evening jogs. 

Right now, she hears Madonna’s, “Like A Virgin.” 

She feels that familiar bubble of laughter rising in her chest at the song choice, and almost lets it out. The wind is whipping past her ears, drowning out the harsh sounds of her ragged breath, and the waves are rolling, crashing into one another. If she did laugh, she’d only hear traces of her amusement, but just as soon as her mirth began, it left her just as suddenly at the sight of the full moon above her.

Gwen makes the mistake of letting her eyes wander away from the hot sand below her numb feet. The deep silver catches her by surprise, and the rock in the sky that’s transfixed her somehow seems closer out here, mingling with the already descending sun. 

She comes to a full stop and exhales, running her hand through her hair as she does, letting her palm come to rest on the back of her sweaty neck. She massages the sore muscles there and continues to look up. Her feet drag along the beach after a minute or two, propelling her forward, lulling her in a lazy walk down the coastline. 

Her eyes never leave the darkening, illuminated sky. Her hands never leave her skin, and when she eventually stops at a point, she feels the gravity all around her keeping her rooted to this specific spot. She doesn’t know where she’s wandered off to, her eyes still glued to the buttermilk glow up ahead, but she finds herself not caring. 

Gwen finally closes her eyes, already too comfortable to stay where she’s standing forever. Already her throat feels too thick. The air out here is as thin as a sheet of paper at night, but will change in the light of day, almost suffocating, like it lives only to choke the sorrow out of her. 

She feels like a stranger out here. Like an intruder. Like she’s tarnished, and everything outside has remained intact. The snarling sense of displacement crawls on her skin, burrows in her bloodstream, and floods all her senses, drowns what little happiness she has left. 

“Thinkin’?”

Gwen spins to her left, startled out of her reverie by the husky sound of Blake’s voice. 

Shock runs through her, replacing the feeling of seclusion. She wandered to his little spot on the beach, right in his backyard, right at the edge of the ocean.

She’s in front of him and he’s in front of her, and her eyes travel the length of him, wishing they hadn’t once they started. 

His signature beer is in his hand, sweating and dripping onto the surface of the sand. He’d been wiping it down with his ridiculously, flower printed shirt, a shirt that he slings over his bare shoulder once he’s done. He lets it drape down one side of his bare chest. His shorts match the fabric of the top garment, and he’s barefoot. 

Always barefoot. 

And cut, everywhere. His arms, his calves, his back. It’s odd and completely endearing how some parts of his skin still try to hold onto the sultry, summer-heated warmth to the color of corium that is paler than the rest of his body. His tan is uneven around his torso and collarbone, most likely around his upper thighs, too.

He’s not like Adam. Not anything like Gavin, either. His stomach holds more weight, sticks out slightly at the waistband of his shorts. He looks healthy, relaxed, like vanity isn’t something he prioritizes but still holds in some high regard. His chest is broad, fit, with a light dusting of hair. Everywhere else is smooth.

She nods. 

She nods to say that she’s always thinking, never stops, because people who can talk don’t spend every waking moment listening to the voices inside of their heads. She nods to stop her eyes from trailing along his body any further. She sets her pools of honey on the sand that lives between his toes. 

“You okay?” He ducks his head to catch her gaze once more.

She’s too easily startled out here. 

Gwen raises her hand to her chest absentmindedly, and presses strongly along her heart, as if to say,  _ I have a feeling. _

He understands immediately, nodding his head as he regards her with a steady gaze. 

_ How does he understand me so easily?  _

“I get those sometimes.” He says, breathing life into her thoughts. 

She cocks her head, asking silently,  _ You do? _

“Yeah.” He answers, filling her blanks of silence with his voice.

It’s unnerving, having this conversation without her ever having said anything aloud. 

Gwen’s eyes travel back and forth between his own, searching, asking once again,  _ What do you do? _

Blake’s eyes crinkle at the corners as he grins. “Well...if you wait long enough, it’ll pass.”

Her hand drops to her side, flexing and relaxing with each passing breath. His eyes stray to the movements, understanding once more.  _ Promise? _

He inhales sharply before stepping forward into her space. He leans in towards her ear and says, “Promise.” 

Her skin prickles with awareness. 

Everywhere. 

He steps away from her then and turns around. His footsteps are large and imposing in the sand. She watches him climb his patio steps and open the back sliding door. 

It takes her a moment to realize he’s left it open. 

He’s left it open for her. 

And just like that, her routine is broken. 

*

Adam bought his malibu house to escape. He hides out here sometimes when he needs to get away, and recuperate when their little world of music and mayhem gets to be too much.

Gwen wishes she would have done the same thing years back, buy a little house out here on this secluded beach. If she had, she wouldn’t have had to accept Adam’s offer now. 

But as she looks around Blake’s home, she’s very content with the fact that she never did. 

Gwen wondered only days after she arrived in Malibu what someone like Blake was doing here. 

His accent tells her that he’s a long way from home. But his confidence, the sure way he walks around his property, the way he invites her into his home, as if the place is an extension of himself, also tells her that he’s comfortable with where he’s at, and who he is, at least out here anyway.

His house is definitely a physical representation of himself.

Gwen’s dark eyes trail across everything. To the boots in the foyer that look worn but washed, and the running shoes tossed by the door, filled with sand and water. There are sports magazines lying about the coffee table, with loose leaf pages that have been scribbled on to accompany them. 

There’s a stag head on the wall above the fireplace in the living room, and several guitars propped in the corner of the cozy room. The walls are blue, like his eyes, and the floor is beige wood, like the color of the sand outside. Betty’s dog toys are stacked neatly in a basket by the hallway she’s sure leads to the bed and bathrooms.The beagle is nowhere in sight, and when her face shows this curiosity for the pup, Blake informs her that she’s with the neighbor’s kids, who take the dog out on their boat every now and then. 

The piano she saw days ago is sitting perfectly in a space meant for a dining table, looking rather impressive as the lights overheard shine down on the glossy exterior. 

Unlike Adam’s house, the kitchen is the heart of this home. She finds him there, fiddling with a plate of marinated, cold cut steaks, and a variety of chopped vegetables thrown into a large bowl. He’s juggling some grilling tools in the other hand and the sight strikes her for many reasons. 

Maybe the most important one being: he isn’t hiding out here. Maybe it’s an escape, the beach, the house, the ocean, but she won’t know until she works up the courage to ask. But whatever it is, Gwen realizes he’s  _ living  _ here. He’s passing through life right here in this little corner of the world, and doesn’t seem to be leaving anytime soon.

“Do you eat meat?” 

The question brings her back to his kitchen, to his watered colored eyes. 

Slowly, Gwen shakes her head, afraid of disappointing him in any way. But he just nods, as if he expected that, as if he expected her for dinner, or expected himself to ask her and for her to agree.

“I’ve got eggplant. You okay if I grill it?” He asks, not looking at her as he busies himself with gathering tonight’s dinner.

Gwen stands still, awkwardly watching Blake as he moves around his kitchen. She sees how remarkably in control he is, even in her presence. She likes it. She likes how he doesn’t miss a beat when his heart is in unexpected territory. She likes how confident he is. Not the kind of confidence that feeds the ego, but the kind that says he doesn’t need one to begin with. 

He’s everything the ocean wishes it could be, everywhere at once, never fighting with the earth to get on land. Blake’s like the air, he takes up all the space wherever he is. Gwen likes him everywhere, even if he’s all around her. Even if she’s been having trouble breathing lately. 

And then, just when she thinks he’s gone and been too much, just when she’s afraid he’s forgotten that she’s even there, like the rest of the world had when she stopped being able to give them anything they thought worth taking, he stops rummaging around and looks right at her.

“Gwen?” 

She likes the way he says her name. 

She hates the way she can’t say his in return.

Gwen doesn’t even know this man. This man with the freedom to understand her, to live everyday like there aren’t people out there losing their gifts and never getting them back again. She doesn’t know who this person is, who sits on this beach, runs on this beach, dreams on this beach, expels his fears on this beach, inherits this ocean on this beach, loves on this beach. 

Who is he?

Gwen doesn’t even know his last name. 

“Are you freakin’ out on me?” 

She looks up at him, but she doesn’t trust herself to speak. She doesn’t know the answer herself. She doesn’t know what her answer will  _ sound _ like when she figures it out. 

Gwen isn’t freaking out.

She’s just...she’s floundering. She’s floundering while he’s...he’s flourishing. 

“Jesus Christ…” Blake swears under his breath. “I can’t...I don’t know what you’re thinkin’ anymore. You gotta tell me.” 

_ No. Please. You’re the only one who can hear me. Don’t go away now. Don’t sail off without me because I’ve lost my voice, my wings, now my legs. I’m not as bold as I thought I was. Maybe on stage, before... But here on land, so close to the water? I don’t know who I am anymore. I can’t hear myself. You were the only one… _

She’s mute. She can’t...she can’t reach him like before because she’s trying so hard to disconnect from herself.

She’s someone she doesn’t recognize at all, and she’s pushing him away. 

_ Stop. Don’t do that. Let him in. Let someone in. I’m scared of being trapped. _

“What is it?” He asks, almost demands. He moves around the kitchen island, closer to her. 

Gwen notices how he blocks the window in the room because of the sheer size of him. It makes the light in the kitchen seem darker, like the shadow that’s been following her ever since the accident has finally drawn in, draped down, just waiting to swallow her whole.

“Go…” Her voice is weak. She’s so fucking  _ weak _ . 

Gwen points to her chest. 

_ I should go.  _

His eyes lock her down. He doesn’t blink like a normal person. It’s like he’s unwilling to miss a single detail about life, so his lashes close with a quickness that she can’t trace. 

“Do you want to go?” He asks her. His footsteps are light, too light for someone of his height and weight. “‘Cause I want you to stay.” 

His words evoke a physical response in her, a pounding ache that has nothing to do with lust, or love, or even attraction, and everything to do with  _ intimacy.  _ Together they’ll figure out what they need to, what she’s trying to say but can’t, and what he’s trying to have but won’t.

Gwen shakes her head before she even realizes what she’s doing, what she’s giving up, what she never had to begin with. 

And then her eyes stray to his heart. Like he hears her, she sees him. Sees the lack of movement in his chest. He’s holding his breath.

Gwen is almost dizzy with the realization. 

_ Just as I’m afraid to let him in, he’s afraid to come inside. _

His confidence is real, but his humanity is tangible. It outweighs anything else on him. 

And then he does something only he allows her to do in this private conversation they’ve started with each other since she arrived in Malibu. 

He speaks without saying anything,  _ I don’t think I have anything else to lose if you stay. Do you?” _

The question surprises her, not because he asked it in the way he did, but because he’s right, and he knows it. 

There’s nothing left that she cares about as much as she does her music. 

There’s nothing and no one. 

So she doesn’t know him. He doesn’t know her. But they speak to each other like getting to know one another will be the easiest thing between them. 

And that...that only comes around once in a lifetime, that much she does know. 

It’s the oldest advice known to man, that smooth waters are best travelled with someone else by your side because you never know when the tide will change, when the waves will start to roll. She knows nothing about sailing. She has no wings to fly above the water, no legs to swim in it, no voice to holler if she ever got caught beneath the sea’s lace. 

So she takes his outstretched hand, the one that comes with an offer, a hot plate filled with dinner and understanding, and calls him captain in her head.

He’s been out here longer than she has. 

Hopefully he knows the way to go. 

Where it is she needs to be taken. 

*

She sees him, but she can’t hear him, not like he can her. 

It bothers her. 

All throughout dinner, she’d stared at his open and inviting face, into his startling, clear, blue eyes, and wished she knew what  _ he _ was thinking.

They didn’t talk much. They ate. They lived in the moment, breathed in the silence that most people would be afraid to inhale. But they weren’t like most people, that she was slowly coming to realize. 

But still. She wants to know what’s bouncing around in his head, and as she comes to stand behind his right shoulder out on the patio, a cold beer in her hand offered up to him like a present, he reads her mind effortlessly. She isn’t sure what gave her away but she’s grateful it did because he looks down at her and smiles understandingly. 

“The color on your toes,” he glances down at her red toenails, covered in sand from earlier after her after dinner walk. The one she took alone as he cleaned up. She insisted on helping him by hauling their dishes to the sink, but he shooed her away with an endearing chuckle and a large hand to the bottom of her slender back.

“It’s the same color my mom used to wear...religiously.” 

She smiles at that as he takes the beer from her hand. He sips from it gratefully and stares ahead at the dark sea. 

She stares at him. 

“Dinner…” She cleared her throat this time before she tried so that Blake could hear something other than the painful rasp of her voice that used to enchant so many. 

_ Dinner was nice. I needed nice.  _

He drops his head down, fingers instinctively start peeling the label off the bottle. “It was alright...the company was nicer.” 

Gwen ducks her own head, hiding a smile that she’s not ready for him to see just yet. 

When she gets up the nerve to look up at him again, his eyes are already on her. They’re soft, admiring. 

She appreciates his gaze, the intimacy of it. 

She doesn’t have to say anything for him to know, but she guesses that’s the beauty of being with him...she never has to.

_ What are you thinking Blake?  _

“I’m thinkin’ that lookin’ at you for too long is not a good idea.” She hears him say. 

The side of her mouth lifts. “Smooth.” Her voice is rough, but he gets her point either way. 

He actually laughs and shakes his head. “Not what I meant.” And yet, he can’t take his eyes off of her. “You just...you remind me of things I haven’t wished for in a long time. You get used to thinkin’ a certain way out here…” 

She knows. She’s pounded the notion that she’ll never be what she once was in her head every morning and every night since the accident, and being out here with him, with his telling eyes and willing ears, is starting to make her think differently, like maybe hope does exist after all.

But she wonders what kinds of things he used to wish for before he got to this little safe haven off the Pacific. It must be written all over her face because he says, “I’ve been out here a long time.” 

So she reminds him of company, then. 

His guitars and his affinity for late nights tells her that she reminds him distinctly of distant music and ancient evenings. 

It can feel rather lonely out here. 

Looking at her probably reminds him that he’s been looking in the mirror only at himself for much too long. He probably forgot what it’s like to see someone else’s smile, someone else’s frown. Maybe that’s what Adam is trying to avoid with her. He doesn’t want her to forget what it feels like to be a part of the world. She can tell that Blake is of the Earth but he’s no longer a part of it.

She doesn’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad omen. 

She wonders what he thinks of it.

She wonders who he is, where he comes from, where he plans on going.

Gwen wets her throat before speaking, “Who…” She points to him softly, swallowing harshly. 

He flinches. It’s the first time he’s anything but composed around her. 

Blake gathers a strong breath before answering. “Blake Shelton.” 

The name doesn’t immediately ring a bell for her, and she’s almost embarrassed to let on her ignorance to him, but Blake seems pleased by this. 

“Country singers run in small circles.” 

So he’s a celebrity. A fellow singer. Another lost child finding themselves in the land of music. He’s like her.

Her eyes light up. She doesn’t know him, but Adam does. Google does. She’ll find out--

He shifts next to her. The space closes between them, and Gwen has to strain her neck to look up at him properly. 

“Don’t look me up.” 

Gwen’s face scrunches unattractively in confusion. 

He sighs, “I don’t want to know your wikipedia page. If I know anything about you it’s ‘cause you want me to...and vice versa.” 

_ But… _

“You ever play the piano or the guitar with your eyes closed?”

She nods, her knee jerk response surprising her. 

“It’s like that,” he reveals. “That feeling at first where you can’t see the keys or the strings but you get a feel for them before you play, and then you know every note by the end of the song...Our eyes are completely closed here, Gwen. I can’t see you and I don’t want to, but I can hear you and that’s...there’s a difference between recognizin’ a person when you pass by them on the street and really knowin’ them when you stop to say hello. One you look for...the other you listen out for.” 

One you play music for...the other you make music with. 

One observes without intruding.

_ I get it. You wanna be felt, not touched. I do, too. I think I’ve always wanted to be understood more than I wanted to be admired.  _

“Blake…” She says in a whisper, not risking tainting his name with notes that go sour, keys that get stuck. He doesn’t deserve that. 

His face loses the seriousness that was clouding his features and Gwen knows then that the only thing that could disappoint this man is the same thing that’s been saving her since the accident. 

Willful silence.

*

His eyes have been on her since she sat down at the piano, albeit reluctantly at first. 

A slight tilt of her head,  _ Do you play?  _

“Not tonight.” He said. 

Now she’s running her fingertips over black and white keys, feeling for a song she knows is in there but refuses to come out as he takes her in, like she’s some kind of new color painted on the walls and he wants to admire his handiwork. 

He’s sitting on the couch, feet stretched out in front of him, ankles crossed, a drowsy look on his face. He’s waiting for her, always so patient, so willing. 

She gifts him with something she’s buried deep down in her soul, something so far away from her that it still feels the faint echo of Tony Kanal. In other words, a first love. 

The piano is tuned. 

She performs a simple scale with a flourish of her hand. 

She feels the soft melody creep up behind her, as if to steal her back from the life she tried to make without him. The life she did make without him. Back to a world she ran as far away from as possible. 

_ Run. Running all the time. Running to the future. _

It’s written for the guitar, but transformed on the piano. 

Gwen almost wishes that there were never any lyrics put to paper. She plays and she plays and the sounds of the instrument underneath her hands comes to life and fills the room with nostalgia, fills his house with memories he doesn’t know she can see when she closes her eyes. 

She fumbles on certain transitions, hits the wrong key sometimes, but through it all, he remains where he’s sitting, watching her, taking her in, breathing her back out.

_ I’m almost afraid to stop.  _

He doesn’t want her to. 

_ It’s like the conversations you have at five a.m. with friends and close strangers. Your words will have to come to an end eventually, when the sun rises once more, but you almost wish it never does again, if only to stay in your cloud of darkness, where the world doesn’t seem so scary because you’ve been talking about it like it’s never hurt you before. _

Oh, how brave the world is when half of it is asleep. 

Her fingers stop suddenly, the melody pilfering off into the quiet, midnight air. Blake’s eyes are closed.  _ Tired?  _

He shakes his head, having anticipated her question once the melody stopped playing. 

“Relaxed.” He throws her way, not moving an inch. 

She stands up, the stool scraping along the hardwood floor. “I’ll go,” her voice is scratchy, hoarse, unrecognizable. 

His eyes shoot open and peirce into her. There're a million things he’s not saying in the blue of his eyes, but she’s not the one that can read minds, so she gathers herself a little more appropriately, readying herself for the walk back.

The silence settles between them as she works up the courage to really say goodbye, and he works up the courage to ask her to stay. They meet in the middle. 

“I’ll walk you back.” 

She nods because she can say nothing else tonight. 

They don’t talk as the midnight air circles around them, as the sand they kick up settles between their toes and in the cracks of their nails. Blake is a solid presence beside her and Gwen likes the way he wards off the encroaching darkness all around her. 

The journey there is always longer than the one back and Gwen has learned to keep her mirth at the bottom of her stomach where it belongs. 

She expects him to say something as they near the side door to Adam’s house but nothing ever comes to him. Everything comes to her but she’s unwilling to say any of it, believing she can’t, for many reasons other than just the physical aspects. 

Instead, Blake smiles down at her red toenails. He says he really likes that color on her without every uttering a single word about it. He looks openly at the scars on her neck. He says she’ll talk more tomorrow, and the day after that, maybe not with her words, but with her willingness to try, even if it is just for him, just  _ to _ him. He then gazes down to her hands. He says she spoke well today. Not that she played well, because he understands that part about her too. 

How the piano is an extension of herself, the way her music used to be, maybe still is. 

Her voice. 

She spoke well today. 

She only hopes he doesn’t render her completely speechless tomorrow.

He watches her walk inside, and Gwen swears that she won’t turn back around when the door slides shut. 

She does. 

She finds him staring at the moon, talking with the stars. He doesn’t move an inch in the direction of his home. 

Gwen slides the door back open, anticipating his questioning eyes, but they never stray from the night’s sky. He looks like she did earlier, when a feeling hit her so suddenly when he found her out by the shoreline in his backyard. 

_ What are you doing? _

Blake stuffs his hands in his pockets and says the only thing that could have taken her breath away that night. 

“Waitin’ for it to pass.”


	3. Golden Spoils Allure

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Any body starting on their masters? I am and it's not fun. School during these times is hard and very time consuming. I wish you all the best wherever you are in your career, education, and personal life. 
> 
> There's a classic song in this little chapter and I encourage you all to listen to it when it appears. It just really sets the mood in that scene. 
> 
> As always, thank you for reading and I hope you enjoy! Happy Reading!!
> 
> \--Lennox

It’s early. 

She doesn’t know if he’ll even be up yet, but she’s been for hours, and the thought of not seeing him any longer is slowly starting to press down on her like a rolling tide.

Last night had been the catalyst for the ripples of need caressing the outer edges of her mind. She likes the way he washes over her, and since she won’t go in the ocean, she’ll settle for his rain. 

There’s a book in her hand and a morning peace-offering in the other as she makes her way down the beach. He and Adam drink the same beer and as Gwen searched about in the fridge for this morning’s breakfast, she found a couple cases of the same brew she’s seen Blake sipping at over the past couple of days. When she couldn’t stand being by herself any longer, she checked the expiration date and plucked one from the pile, knowing Blake would at least be tickled by her efforts, if not amused by the early hour she’s chosen to impose them, and decided to head over his way. She likes to think that he’s been anticipating her company even if he wasn’t entirely expecting it so soon again. 

As she pads her way through the warm sand that’s just barely been touched by the morning rays, Gwen hears the distinct sound of an old radio playing on the side deck. Then the excited barks of Betty hit her from the sea, and she can’t anticipate what morning offerings of his own that he’s brought to her. 

The singer looks up and beyond the wire fence that borders the patio, and sees the ocean stretch for miles, sees his trusted companion chasing after the birds flying dangerously close to the washed up seaweed just at the edges of the shoreline. 

And then she sees him. Her stomach, chest, throat, all constrict too fast. 

Blake is less than ten feet away, scrubbing and scraping down the grill on the deck. He’s wholly focused on the task, but every now and then he’ll raise his head and look over to the coastline to watch Betty spray herself with the ocean’s waves as she pounces on her feathered friends. 

Blake’s back is to her, and from where Gwen’s standing, she can see the muscles concealed underneath his light grey shirt as he shifts slightly around the grill, moving to get a better look at the underside of the gridiron.

Gwen hesitantly ascends the side steps of the porch and quietly clears her throat. 

Blake’s back is bent a little bit as he scrapes at the wrought iron, but upon hearing her approaching steps, the muscles in his back stop flexing and he stills for a moment. He looks over his shoulder at her and smiles, spotting the sweating beverage in her hand.

“That beer better be for me.” 

She smiles and fiddles with the twist of lid before bending down next to him to set it on the side, wooden table. 

Blake immediately leans in closer to grab for the now open bottle, and Gwen bites her lip as she feels his solid breath fan the side of her cheek as she straightens to stand once more.

“Morning,” she croaks, wincing as the hoarseness of her underused vocal cords itch the sides of her throat. 

He takes a long sip and Gwen marvels at how someone can drink so early, and yet stay so alert throughout the day. When her eyes travel the length of him again, Gwen’s admiration shifts to the drenched shirt sticking to Blake’s chest.

“Mornin’ Gwen,” he finally greets as he sets his beer down and throws the scrub pad against the hood of the grill, standing to his full height now. He grabs the scuffed dish towel next to him off the bannister and wipes at his blackened hands. His eyes stray back to Betty, and Gwen wonders for the first time since meeting him what his entire story is. 

She wants to ask. 

But she’s afraid he won’t tell her, or worse, reveal everything and still shut the door in the end. 

“Busy?” She whispers, nodding to the grill, trying for his attention, saying without words that she doesn’t want to intrude on his time and yet, she wants nothing more than for him to give her all that he has. 

Blake finally looks at her properly, and his eyes are framed by thick, dark-colored eyelashes. Behind them, the ocean sways. Behind the two of them, the ocean moves.

“Not for you.” He answers, stilling every part of himself, stilling everything around them that refuses to stop, the air, their beating hearts, the trepidation that crawls along her skin at the notion that he’ll set sail one day without looking back to her. 

She smiles because she doesn’t have any reason not to, not in this moment.

“I was gonna take Betty for a walk. You wanna come with?”

Gwen puts a name to the emotion caught inside her throat right then. It’s everything she’s afraid of out here. It’s Blake eventually shutting the door when too much water has been taken out and he can’t see letting the person that drained him to begin with, inside, that is familiar to what Gavin had done to her, what Tony had said she’d done to him. It’s Blake, one day, no longer looking back for her that is eerily similar to the rejection she felt when the world played her entire discography for a week after the accident and then moved on to the next headline. But it’s not the rejection or him suddenly shutting her out that scares her the most. It’s the retreat. 

His retreat. 

The time that will surely come when he sets sail, and he doesn’t ask her to come with. She can’t withstand either three, but only one could ever truly kill her. 

She knows abandonment. She knows final goodbyes and never being enough which always leads to never being wanted ever again. But never being needed? 

Her throat scratches her from the inside out, and Gwen thinks of the industry she grew up in that no longer needs her because she can’t sing. She thinks of the men that have loved her and that have left her because she couldn’t be enough. Gwen thinks of Adam, who wants her but can’t have her because she can’t let him.

And she thinks of Blake. 

_ What will it be this time? Will he want her to talk? Want her to stay? Want her to swim in the ocean while he parts all her seas? What does he want? What does he need?  _

It’s the uselessness for her. That’s the emotion. The only thing she never wants to be and has proven to be like time and time again. She doesn’t ever want to be useless, not to him, because she’s ashamed to admit that he’s been the most useful thing in her life since she arrived at this tiny, hidden part along the coast. 

And he wants her now, or else he wouldn’t ask her to come along. He might even need her to. And she’s actually considering having faith in that belief, and having faith in someone else other than God and her parents because she’s never had to run to get to either one of them. 

That’s the problem. 

She’s always been running in whatever direction the wind wanted to take her. 

But the wind is slow today, only rippling through Blake’s thick curls every now and then, and she’s left her running shoes at the house. 

And a walk... 

A walk along the beach with Blake Shelton sounds heavenly right about now.

*

He’s wearing a backwards baseball hat that bears a logo of some brand of alcohol she’s not familiar with and the running shorts he’s changed into are shorter at the top of his thighs than she was expecting, and everything about him reminds her of late afternoon picnics on the beach and the ripest of fruits dissolving in her mouth. 

Betty’s paws bounce in the sand happily as she struts away several feet in front of them. Her shiny, polished, black fur looks like silk underneath the sun’s rays, and Gwen is dying to stay in this moment forever. 

Blake’s legs are long, and his stride is even. In comparison, Gwen doesn’t struggle to keep up, but she doubles her footsteps to match his, because she likes the way their footprints leave equal marks along the sand. 

He glances over to her every so often. They’re not speaking, but that’s okay, because her flushed skin tells him that she’s content to breathe in the silence forever. She only wishes she could read the expression on his face. 

He can see that she longs for such a thing, and he slowly blinks his eyes to convey throughout their blue that he’s not surprised she’s survived this long, despite her career. And then she sees a flash and…

_ I won’t be surprised when you survive even me, Gwen. _

She doesn’t understand this and he quickly throws his shields back up again. It’s quiet once more and Gwen regrets going fishing for his thoughts.

His hand brushes the back of hers ever so slightly as they walk, and she can feel the introspection behind the caress. 

He’s thinking she might let him hold her soon and the idea scares her, not because she’s afraid to be touched, but because he seems like the kind of man who wouldn’t stop there, who  _ couldn’t _ stop there. 

He’s the type to give an experience, and Gwen thinks he must have put on one hell of a show as a country singer. 

The bottom line, she knows the difference between touching and feeling. One meant you were heard. 

The other meant you were understood.

*

“You don’t sound as bad as you think you do.”

Gwen looks up from her glass of moscato. 

They’re sitting on Adam’s patio this time, lunch spread out in front of them as they sit and watch the waves marry each other over and over and over again. 

Blake gives her a look over the cheese and crackers and another chilled beer and Gwen resists the urge to grimace as she at least attempts a wry smile. 

“I just think you’d be a lot more relaxed if you knew that I don’t give a shit about all that….I like hearing you talk, Gwen, and...the things I wanna ask you...I don’t think one word answers will do.”

Gwen holds her breath. This is what she’s been waiting for. She knew the other shoe would drop eventually. She just thought she had more time. 

Her eyes meet his but he’s not looking at her directly. Instead, his baby blues are stuck on her profile as she chances a look out at the water. They travel to the line of her neck, and her skin burns with the weight of his gaze. 

“Can I make you a deal?” He asks, nearing the soft side of bluntness. She finds it ironic that there’s even such a margin as delicate as the one he imposes on her time and time again. 

She sighs as she looks back to him,  _ I’m not ready. _

“No one ever is.” 

“Blake…” She croaks, feeling the lines of her face deepen. 

“What I mean is...bein’ ready is a state of mind. Physically, I think we’re ready for anythin’. It’s just a matter of...for how long and for what for. But no one is ever really ready emotionally, no matter how much we tell ourselves that we are. You just gotta take a leap of faith, and trust that there’s always gonna be someone there to pick you back up when you fall.” 

Gwen smiles faintly. “You mean…” She clears her throat. “To catch me.” 

He shakes his head right away. “No...You gotta fall, Gwen. If you never hit the ground, you never appreciate flying. You never take for granted havin’ every opportunity to never be so low to the ground ever again. Some people never even make it past the skyline.” He shrugs. “So no. I won’t catch you but...I’ll never let you convince yourself to stay down here and never fly again.” 

Blake catches her arm and slides his hand down the surface of it to run the pad of his thumb over the pulse point in her wrist. “Talk to me. Start slow. I’ve got all the time--I’m not going anywhere any time soon.” 

Gwen goes still, looking at him with intent penetration, heartbreakingly careful and cautious. He sighs. 

“I understand what it’s like to lose a part of yourself that you thought was the only part worth showin’ the world...You’re not done yet, Gwen. So don’t give up. Talk. Try. Don’t end up out here like me.” 

Her copper eyes are over-bright now, all liquid and wide and hauntingly enchanting. She sees the reflection of them in his own. 

“Sad?” She asks,  _ Are you out here and sad all the time?  _

Blake lets go of her wrist and leans back in his chair. His eyes stray to the ocean as if it helps him breathe a little better to see the water crashing down onto the shore instead of admitting that the pressures of his life crash into himself repeatedly.

“You think I’m sad?” He asks, eyes still focused on the horizon up ahead. 

Gwen’s muscles slowly relax one at a time. She shakes her head. 

“Good. ‘Cause I’m not. I’m just...I’m the guy that knows the storm is comin’. Can feel it in the air...see it in the tide. And instead of boarding up all the windows and doors and preparing for the damage...I’m sittin’ outside drinkin’ a beer, waitin’ for the water to slip past the shore one last time.” 

Gwen understands him a little better now. 

_ Blake Shelton. You’ve lost a part of yourself and now you stay out here. You’re not sad but you’re not exactly happy either. You’re waiting, not for something, but because of something, and you don’t want me to end up like you.  _

Because it’s one thing to find yourself out here, but it’s another to lose yourself even more to the sea. It’s one thing to have flown and fallen, and have gotten back up again with the help of someone else. It’s another to have flown and fallen and given up entirely.

_ Don’t end up out here like me. _

Gwen wonders if he pushed everyone away like her. She wonders if he ran to this place, if this place trapped him before he could find his wings again. 

But most of all, she wonders if he ended up out here, and there was no one like himself to help pick him back up again, the way he’s trying with her. 

She wonders if talking to him will be enough to get them both out.

She wonders if her wings will be strong enough to carry him to the place he was before he lost himself, just as his words were strong enough to pull her out of this house and over to his orbit, right into her recovery.

*

She thinks about her lonely dinner the next morning. 

Her eyes are wide open, staring at the ceiling fan above the bed as it moves in a steady circle. 

Her skin is warm, just barely holding a layer of sweat that feels sticky and yet comforting at the same time.

The room is flooded with light, despite the closed curtains. It’s unnaturally calm outside and she can tell this because there is absolutely no breeze brushing over her skin. She can feel the thick humidity and she immediately kicks the covers off of her.

She wishes she could have eaten with him one last time before the day drew to a close. But he thought he should give her some space, allow her some time to think over everything he’d said and proposed. 

_ Talk to me, Gwen.  _

But why talk to the only person who doesn’t really need her words? 

Unless he does...and if that’s true, then she’s fucked.

Because then she’ll have to speak to him. She’ll have to get better—be better. She’ll have to be whole again. She’s never been the type of girl to disappoint, especially when the person she holds in such high esteem is a six foot five country singer who smells like sugar and pomegranates and beer, and who looks like he walked off an old Hollywood set in beach clothes. 

There’s something about the way she’s so drawn to him. It could just be the air, the scenery, the way it feels like she’s in a bubble that she’ll never have to come out of unless he pops it for the both of them, that makes her think crazy things like... 

_ He’s the one.  _

The one what? 

The one to pull her out of this nightmare that she’s been living in for the past couple of months? Or maybe he’s the one to save her. Maybe he’s the one to love her, succeed in areas where Gavin and Tony never could, in places that Adam has only ever tried to be. 

But that’s ridiculous. 

A couple of days here and he hasn’t once hinted at any passionate or intense need for her. He’s more interested in the company, in the tragedy that surrounds her.

So maybe she finds him attractive. Maybe she finds herself wanting to run her fingers through his hair and her mouth over his sun-kissed skin, but Blake…

Blake Shelton. A man she hardly knows. He can't be the one. He can't be.

Only she is forgetting all of the reasons why he can’t be when she’s around him.

Like now. 

There’s a knock at the door. She can hear it all the way from the open bedroom, and it could only be one person. If Adam was finally coming up for a day or two, he would have called instead of texted, would have made sure that it was okay with her first. 

_ Blake, then.  _

She hears him. The door sliding open, the quiet footsteps heavy on the hardwood floors because he’s always barefoot. She hears the paper bags being set on the kitchen counter. Hears the faucet running with cold water. 

Then she hears something that both startles and frightens her to an almost panic inducing level.

Music. 

She hasn’t played any since the car ride over here. Hasn’t heard any since the radio on his patio, the one that played so quietly that she could barely register the notes or the melody or any lyrics that would bring her back to a time that she longed for the most.

But now she wants to laugh because Blake Shelton has just put on a Rolling Stones record.

_ Beast of Burden. _

Gwen feels a punch of air escape from her chest when she realizes he’s just pulled a Gwen. Coming over entirely too early to be acceptable, bearing gifts, absolutely being a menace and a blessing all wrapped into one amazing present. 

She rolls over and smiles into the silk sheets. The easy sounds fill the air and Mick Jagger’s sensual drawl makes its way up her skin and right into her heart.

She gets up a little unsteadily on two legs and throws a pair of cotton shorts on. She pulls down her white tank top and enters the bathroom with all the childlike excitement on a Christmas morning. She takes care to brush her teeth thoroughly, and runs a handful of lukewarm water over her hair as she brushes the droplets through the static frizz. She washes her face, forgos makeup because he’s never asked her to put any on, and makes her way to the bedroom door.

Blake has this way about him that makes her stop in her tracks, more than once. Makes her look around at her surroundings and ponder how she got there, how she could ever leave. 

He sings. 

It’s just a couple of lines.

_ Ain't I rough enough? Ooh, honey _

_ Ain't I tough enough? _

_ Ain't I rich enough? In love enough? _

He’s making coffee and cutting up fruit and looking for all the world like he lives there. He’s dripping all over the kitchen, and she’s almost jealous that he’s so comfortable swimming in the ocean when she isn’t. So comfortable to be messing up Adam’s wooden floors in all his dripping glory like he knows the younger man won’t mind.

And then a thought strikes her before she can catalogue anymore of his relaxed appearance. 

“Do you know Adam?” 

It’s the clearest sentence she’s spoken in months. It doesn’t sound pretty, doesn’t sound like herself at all, but she finally did it. No stuttering, no pauses, just words and the lilt of her voice. 

Suddenly, the music is too loud, and Blake grabs a dish towel to dry his hands before turning the radio down. He’s heard her. She can tell by the way he turns to look her way, by the movement of his hips as he lets his lower back rest against the edge of the counter. He looks like he doesn’t want to admit something and that settles yet another thing hot and bothersome down in the deep of her gut. 

Blake tosses the towel next to the coffeemaker and finally looks at her properly. 

His hair drips water down the sides of his face and in the middle of his nose and she swears that he’s as desirable as that first cold drink on an empty stomach right in the dead heat of a hot day. 

“Yeah.” 

Gwen nods because she doesn’t know what else to do. The words escape her, which isn’t surprising. She somehow wishes that she knew this information right from the start, but a part of her doesn’t want to put her friend in the middle of whatever this is. A part of her is so thankful to Adam, while another is irrationally aggravated with him. 

And then she stops being irritated when her eyes actually register the man in this kitchen. She catches his gaze before she chances a glance lower only to immediately whip her eyes back up to meet his again.

She feels guilty. Her mind drifts back to the bedroom and her morning thoughts, about mouths and skin, and fingers and hair, and she feels guilty about thinking of him in such a way when she doesn’t know if he thinks about her in the same regard. 

And then she flushes nervously, and inadvertently tells him that she’s guilty about something, and he reads her like a fucking book because God still takes mercy on men like him every now and then. 

He’s just standing in this kitchen shirtless, with a pair of godawful Hawaiian swimming trunks hanging low around his waist, and she can’t understand how someone can look so dreadfully handsome without cut abs and a smooth chest.

He looks like a  _ man  _ to her and what she previously thought as conventionally attractive is nowhere to be found as her eyes follow a path down his long neck and torso. He looks comfortable enough to lay on. He’s not all hard lines like Gavin and Adam, nor does he have the skinny frame of a young man like Tony had possessed. Blake’s body isn’t perfect but it holds history.

He’s got small scars, probably from accidents when he was just a little boy, hunting and fishing and doing whatever country boys like him do when they’re that age. He’s got the faintest knife lines across his arms like he cut too close somewhere in some place in time, and his elbow bears the evidence of once having been fractured. His legs are scratched in a million places, hidden behind light, thin, hair, and his knuckles are misshapen. 

There’s no mistaking her admiration for him, nor the arousal she feels as his eyes slowly dawn with recognition. 

The humid air has an electrical charge to it, and the music is especially grating on their palpable silence. Gwen moves closer in an effort to break it but she’s not sure if that brings them closer to the edge or another inch away from it.

Blake watches her as she rounds the island. Watches as her eyes flit to the fruit he’s been cutting and then back again to his large and imposing form. He does something entirely unexpected then, and Gwen is relieved to know that his unpredictableness is actually rather predictable in itself. 

One of her companions' long fingers encircles a ripe piece of strawberry. She watches as Blake brings the fruit to his lips and swallows the produce in one bite. He then grabs for another and holds it out for her to take. 

She wants to laugh because he’s putting distance between them. He’s answered her question, and now she’s most likely entirely too close on purpose, and he’s looking to change the subject. 

Only she won’t let him. 

What she should do is wrap her hands around his and take the fruit gingerly, properly, like any sane and normal person would do. But she’s not sane, never has been, and will most likely never be. And as for being normal? She might have considered herself just an ordinary girl from Orange County for years but if she’s being honest with herself, no one normal ever actually makes it in this business.

So Gwen does something inhibited and wild and completely out of character since the accident.

She takes a risk.

The pop singer catches Blake’s gaze and steps even closer to him. She smiles minutely before tipping her chin the slightest bit, and grins widely as he anticipates her intent, just as he’s able to read her mind. 

Blake lifts the fruit to her mouth and watches as her lips close around it. She barely feels the pads of his fingers on her tongue, but she knows they were there before she retreated. She knows he felt her heat and wetness. He knows that it’s somehow scary for her to let him in, let him touch, and feel, and that holding her is a novel concept, but being inside of her is somehow easier, like his fingers in her mouth, and her thoughts inside his head.

The ocean is suddenly too loud, drowning out the music and their labored breathing. She has no clue where to go from here. All that she’s sure about is that him and Adam know each other, and the ache inside of her is no longer attributed to her accident.

Gwen wonders not for the first time why she’s so drawn to the man standing before her, and then her mind treacherously crawls back to Adam. What does her wonderfully funny, kind, and gorgeous friend lack when it comes to Blake? Why is it so easy to get sucked into blue when she could lie peacefully next to green for the rest of her life?

“He respects you.” Blake breathes, making no jarring or sudden movements. “He admires you.”

_ In the same way I do you? _

There is no breeze in the room, and Gwen struggles with the stillness of it all. So Adam talked about her. Talked about  _ her  _ with  _ Blake.  _ She wonders what exactly about, but she doesn’t think Blake’ll tell her.

“He’s a good  _ friend. _ ” Gwen replies, her voice sweet, but husky, like thick molasses. 

Blake stares down at her for several moments, his gaze unwavering, steady all over, just like him.

“I guess we’re all good friends, now.” He says. 

And Gwen nods, because it’s nearly impossible for her to decipher his words just as much as it is his thoughts. 

It doesn’t mean she won’t try, just not now, not then when she’s this close to hearing his heartbeat and stringing together sentences like her voice isn’t still raw and broken beyond repair, just not beyond his repair, she realizes. 

_ Where did you meet Adam? Do you love him as much as I do? Did you know that he was driving the car? The car that ripped my voice right out of my chest? The car that led me here...to this? To you? Do you know how hard it is to be wanted by him when all I ever really needed was you and your crazy mind? The mind that knows what I’m going to say before I ever do? The one that believes I will even when I know I won’t?  _

And Gwen wonders why she’s so drawn to him and not one of her closest and most loyal friends. It’s not about history or the past or wants and needs. It boils down to one thing. 

Adam knew she needed to get away, and so he gave her this entire paradise. But he didn't know what she would do with it once she got here. He didn’t know what she needed to do to make it worth it, to keep her from walking into the ocean and never coming back out again. 

Blake knows what he doesn’t. 

He just knows far too much about how she moves. It’s as simple as that. He knows her thoughts, her feelings, her disbeliefs, mainly in herself, and he knows how to manipulate each one to keep her rooted, keep her underneath the sun’s rays, and the sky’s clouds. He doesn’t let her wash away with the sand. He doesn’t let her waste away in this house. He doesn’t let her voice become trapped and buried beneath the waves of pain and guilt that she’s suffered from the accident. 

He just knows. And that’s why she wants him. That’s why she aches for him. And as she stands in this kitchen, not asking the questions she wants to, not saying the words she needs to, seeing firsthand how much Blake can anticipate her next move, Gwen takes a step back. 

It’s as scary as being held...being anticipated. Being  _ known _ . Being  _ understood  _ instead of pitied. Maybe Adam loves her but he also pities her, and that’s not entirely his fault. 

Just like it’s not Blake’s fault that he knows too much about how she moves and too little about how she might move on him. Beneath him. On top of him.

Right now she’s beside him, in front of him, and she can’t be anywhere else because he’s not the one, no matter how much she might wish him to be. 

He said so himself.

Blake Shelton is just a guy waiting for the storm, and Gwen can’t be caught underneath another wave.

She just might stay here forever if she did, and that would mean she didn’t try hard enough where it mattered. 

And what did he say to her earlier? 

_ Don’t end up out here like me. _


	4. Your Hands Are Ever Pure

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome back to the little corner of the world where Blake and Gwen live permanently on a beach, broken and beautiful together. Hope that's your cup of tea, cause I'm about to give you a lot to drink in the next two chapters. :)
> 
> Thanks again for all your lovely comments and your unwavering patience. 
> 
> Love you all <3
> 
> Happy Reading guys!

It’s her fault that he doesn’t come around anymore. 

It’s been a full week in paradise, and all Gwen can compare her solitude and hot evenings to is hell, or at least a purgatory she’s doomed to never escape from. 

She should have never said so much to him in the kitchen. And even more, she should have never left his side. She should have been like the juices in her mouth from his fruit, sticky and stubborn and impossibly bittersweet. 

Now, he doesn’t show up out of the blue with his handsome curls and bright eyes. Now, he stays on his side of the beach, and she’s left to her own devices on hers. The morning runs don’t feel the same, she can’t go as far, and the direction the wind takes her is not the place she wants to be. There’s no music when he’s not there to turn some on. And the ocean taunts her with its color and its movement, reminding her that she was in fact swimming in it when he was close by. 

Gwen stands on the beach in nothing but a white bikini, thinking not for the first time how she ended up so alone, how she always ends up leaving before she can truly be left. She wonders when that started. Maybe it was Tony, after all. The very first love of her life, the only one who managed to leave her in the dust before she could get the car started. 

She realizes that Gavin had one foot out the door the entire time, the way married men do when they decide to cheat on their wives at bars every night and expect coffee at home every morning. Gwen divorced  _ him.  _ She didn’t wait for Gavin to close the door, to trap her inside, to leave with all her pieces and drive off into the sunset like he owned every part of her and now would forever. She didn’t dare make those same mistakes again when it came to love. 

Then Adam exploded into her life. Young, sweet, funny, crazy, Adam. Adam who she dared to give an inch only to take back a mile when he came too close. Adam, who wanted to give her the world not knowing that she’d already seen all of it, and now only wanted the small beach house less than forty feet away from her and the man inside of it. Spending time with Adam had shown Gwen that you can stay with someone and yet leave them simultaneously. All it took was a simple give and take. She’d give him affection in the form of a hug, and take back her love when she dogged his returning kisses. She’d give him a smile when he’d say something humorous, but take back the warmth of it by refusing to laugh.

Give and take. 

She’s always prepared to leave, because she can’t afford to be left. 

She doesn’t want to give and take with Blake. She wants to give and give and give, and she wants him to understand that the only thing she’s willing to take with her at the end of this break is the memory of him, because she knows that leaving here by herself is a definite, and Gwen can only handle what she knows, even if it’s something she fears, over what could be, what might be if she just dared to dream. 

The only hope that lives inside of her right now is the hope that when she knocks on his door, he’ll answer like nothing transpired between them in Adam’s kitchen in what feels like so long ago, for if he did, Gwen will be able to speak again, because she’ll be talking to her voice once more. 

His is the one that is most familiar to her, now. His voice. Their voice. All it took was a week, but Gwen can hear him calming her with it. She can feel him killing her with it. And then she hears it, despite the birds and the waves she passes by on her way to him, and Gwen is shaken to her core, because it’s his voice she wants, but it's her own that she hears as she approaches. The one inside of her that says,  _ take this man and run very far away, because if you don’t, he’ll ask you to stay here with him forever, and you won’t be able to say no. _

Gwen doesn’t know what she really expects from her life, doesn’t exactly know what she was expecting of Blake, but him and the ocean and an incredible breeze to pass between them like a subtle caress...she wasn’t expecting that at all.

He’s always surprising her. Always doing something different than the time before, as if he’s on a schedule, as if every day that he wakes up is a surprise and a blessing, and every tomorrow is not promised. 

Blake is surrounded by pieces of wood, and nails, and tools, and he’s standing in the middle of it all with his hands on his hips and a look of determination in his eyes. He’s wearing red swimming trunks and a backwards grey hat and his shirt is nowhere to be found. He’s glimmering in front of her, shifting back and forth to inspect the messy scene in front of him, and Gwen’s eyes focus on the sweat-licked muscles of his tanned chest catching the sun’s rays. There’s music playing in the distance, some lazy, slow italian song that catches Gwen off guard because Blake Shelton is Blake Shelton. 

Her eyes crinkle, and she wants to laugh, but all she does is walk closer to him. 

He doesn’t startle as she draws near, but she can tell that she’s taken him by surprise at the way his eyes squint a half a centimeter more, having nothing to do with the sun or the breeze.

There’s so much she wants to say to him. For starters, she wants to say  _ I’m sorry _ . Secondly, she wants to beg him to let her stay, even if she never does apologize. And thirdly, she wants to ask him who he really is, wants to know what she didn’t before about him, because she’s tired of knowing just enough to drive her mad, just enough to keep her coming back. 

She asks none of this, of course, because he’s in front of her the next second, all long limbs and sun-kissed skin, and he’s searching her eyes for something. 

_ I’m sorry I pulled you in and then kept you out. _

She winces. It sounds stupid in her mind, and would sound even dumber if she said the words out loud to him, but thankfully, she doesn’t have to. Blake simply moves away just when he’s gotten too close, reminding her of how it feels to be sucked in and then thrown right back out. Because that’s what she did. She tasted a part of him, and then disregarded the entire person. She ran away, decided to hole herself up in Adam’s house, made it very clear that Blake should stay well away from her, too. 

She looks at his clear blue eyes, sees his feelings on the matter. 

_ You can’t do things like that to people. _

She nods. She understands. Most importantly, she knows that it’s not the lack of a proper goodbye that’s bothered him deeply, it’s the lack of faith, more than enough apparently for her to make it so easy to leave in the first place. 

_ I didn’t used to be like this.  _

She wants to say to him but she finds the words lacking. She feels nothing but shame then, because he’s a man that cares very deeply, and she realizes that he cares very deeply about her. It doesn’t matter that it’s only been such a short time. He understands her. He offered to help her. He cares, and she told him to essentially fuck off.

Friend or lover, it doesn’t matter to him. That’s what he’s been trying to show her. 

She just wishes that she could apologize properly, wishes she could explain why she so often retreats instead of staying put like a good little girl. 

_ I know nothing about you, and yet I know I can trust that ignorance anyways, that I can trust the twists and turns of my heart whenever you speak, whenever you breathe my way, whenever you look in my direction. I know almost everything about Adam and yet I can’t trust him with a single feeling, nor a single thought. Is it because he took my voice away? No. I didn’t trust him before then either.  _

“Gwen.” 

_ And you know what? Screw you. Screw you because I was fine being miserable before. I was fine being silent, being useless. I didn’t need to come here for this. I didn’t need your ocean and your relentless waves, and I definitely didn’t need your sun. And you’re on this strip of beach for what? Huh? What does waiting for the water even mean? And why do I have this sudden urge to wait for it with you?  _ **_Screw you, Blake Shelton._ ** _ And most importantly, screw the fact that I don’t know who you are, and screw it all to hell that everyday I wake up, I care a little less that I don’t.  _

There. 

Right there is what gathers all of her fears right in front of her, until they sit there obediently, staring back at her expectantly. Because that’s exactly what it is. The fact that he’s settled inside of her, practically made a home where her heart should be, and a week ago, she didn’t even know he existed. Most people had to fight to be where he is. To scratch and beg and plead to get to her, to be a part of her world. It took this man a simple walk across the beach in eighty degree weather one sunny afternoon. It’s the fact that he occupies all of her thoughts, and takes up most of her time. Afterall, her time was so precious before. Everything had moved so fast in the music industry. But maybe that was his point. Maybe that’s what he meant when he said to just stay in the moment, to just get to know each other as they are, instead of as who they were and who they thought themselves always to be.

This is what truth feels like. 

He just wants to live in the moment. 

He just wants to tell the truth.

This is what life should always be like. This is what the truth  _ feels _ like. 

Out here isn’t the music industry. Out here it’s just the water. Just them. They don’t have to be Blake Shelton or Gwen Stefani. They can just be Gwen and Blake.

_ I haven’t been Gwen in so long, I think I’ve forgotten who she is.  _

Blake sighs then and Gwen hates the way the sound tugs at her heart. She doesn’t want to disappoint him, and for the first time since they’ve met, Gwen’s said all of this to herself, and only to herself. 

“Listen...I talked to Adam...about you. He told me you were gonna be stayin’ at his place. Didn’t tell me for how long...I get the impression that he…” His eyes flash before he finishes, “He cares about you a lot.”

Gwen works to get herself back on track. Her line of thoughts had derailed her from his train, and she’s working extra hard to catch up, to get on board. So she nods because she needs to, because he’s said something, and because he’s right, and because she’s known that for how long now? But she shakes her head and says, “We’re friends.” 

“Yeah. I got that...But tell me you’ve never wondered about it.” 

He asks like someone whose job it is to take all the hot air out of a balloon.

“About what?” She breathes, clearing her scratchy throat.

“You and him. Tell me it never crossed your mind.” It almost sounds like an order, a demand, and Gwen is sure he’s never been this harsh with her before. 

She shakes her head, because she can already feel the disappointment forming in his bones as he watches her. It’s the wrong thing to do because his jaw tenses, and his chest constricts visually. 

“Jesus, Gwen. I’m not--I’m askin’ because Adam is my friend and...he goes through women and models like they’re frickin’ skittles, but you...he has nothin’ but great things to say whenever he brings you up. And I swear that I don’t know you. I don’t. He only ever tells me about how he feels about you, about how he doesn’t know what you feel for him. And meeting you...I get it. I get why he’s so hung up on you. But I can’t...I can’t be if there’s even the slightest possibility that you and him--” 

Blake takes his hat off and runs a steady hand through his thick curls before hiding them under the garment once again. “I meant what I said about helping you. But Adam is like a brother to me...So I only ask because of him.” 

Gwen closes her eyes so tightly that she thinks they’ll never open again. 

She has thought about it. Of course she’s thought about it. Adam is handsome. He’s funny, and sexy, and so very talented. The problem is that Gwen has to convince herself that it will be okay if it never happens with him, and tell herself that it will be fine if it did. Fine as in she’ll be able to tolerate it if it ever occurred to her to give Adam the time of day, as if it could potentially be a hardship. Staring at Blake now, she knows the opposite is true, because she’s thought about him way  _ too _ much. Now she’ll have to tell herself that it will be okay if it ever happened with him, and convince herself that it will be fine if it never did. She’ll have to remind herself that not being with him won’t kill her, even if she’s hundred percent sure that it might. 

But she won’t lie to him again. She won’t withhold the truth when the truth is, she didn’t know what she really wanted at the end of the day. She can say that it’s Blake she desires now, because that is the truth, but what about when she goes back? When she leaves and Adam is there, always there, and she’s healed again, and the music flows from her once more. Will she want Blake then? Is she confusing want with need? Does she really want Adam but need his friend more? Should it worry her that she’s never needed Adam in the first place? Won’t her need for Blake just transcend into desire anyways? And what was so wrong with wanting and needing one man? Why did she always have to ask other people for other things? Maybe because when she asked Tony and Gavin for everything, they told her it was too much, that  _ she  _ was too much, and they didn’t have enough. And why did she think that was her fault too? 

“Gwen--” He presses, and her eyes gloss over his sharp features as she opens them again. She relents. 

“Yes,” she whispers. “I’ve thought about it.” 

Gwen braces herself for what’s to come next. She’s afraid of where he’ll take this. She’s afraid for him to prod at the wound Adam’s opened inside of her ever since she realized her friend felt more for her than she did for him. She doesn’t want Blake to go there. Doesn’t want him to pry it open, look inside, doesn’t want him to leave because of what he’ll see, or better yet, what he won’t.

But Blake just blinks. He blinks and stills, and the tension leaves him. She almost wishes she never met Adam, because then Blake wouldn’t feel like he had to hold back from her. She wishes she didn’t feel like she was an open damn now, splayed open and spilling all her guts right in front of him. 

She thinks he might ask her if she feels the same way about Adam, if she’s even considering truly returning his feelings sometime in the near future. But he doesn’t do that either. He simply nods, breathes, blinks the sweat out of his eyes.

“How’s your voice feel today?” 

It’s the last thing she expected him to say, to ask her, but Gwen gets the distinct impression that it’s something he wanted to ask her all along, since the moment she appeared before him. They’ve said a lot in the span of a couple of minutes, but this is the one that Gwen really sees that he cares about. 

_ How are you doing? How can I help? Forget the rest, your voice is the only thing that matters to me right now. It should be the only thing that matters to  _ **_you_ ** _ right now.  _

But it’s not. Gwen doesn’t care one bit about what she can’t say, because she’s too focused on what he won’t say to her. 

“I can make you some tea my mom swears by. We can sit out here and relax when it’s done.” He scratches the back of his covered head. “Well, I gotta at least get some of this started but you can watch me struggle.” He smiles, gesturing to all the wooden pieces and misplaced nailheads. 

Gwen’s eyes roam over his entire face. His features are clear now, not a cloud in sight, as if the last few minutes never happened. 

“Spend the day with me.” 

The tension in his voice earlier is nowhere to be found, as if every terse feeling had faded away into the air, and Gwen is breathless from the boomerang of emotions she’s just gone through.

He’s not pushing for anything anymore. He asked his questions, received his answers, and now he’s content to allow her to fill the spaces in his time, and Gwen, who is so desperate to feel useful, so scared to push him away again, agrees half-heartedly, because the other half just wants a storm to pass through her former life, to erase what became before Blake, because she’s so enthralled with everything that comes after him.

Despite her best efforts, Gwen finds herself caught underneath his wave. 

The only thing that surprises her, is how easy it is to breathe under his crushing weight.

*

Gwen’s never been a heavy sleeper. 

Ever since she was a little girl, she’d be able to feel when someone walked into her bedroom, or stood over her when she managed to fall asleep on the couch in the family room. 

It’s the same out here. Even in the dredges of sleep, she can always feel Blake shifting next to her, working on his project in the sand. Before her eyes fluttered closed where she lay, on a warm sunbathing chair stretched out in the middle of his mess, Gwen watched him work. She watched him bend over, or crawl over to a piece of wood that he needed, even extend his arms and legs to scoot tools closer to him, and Gwen allowed a lazy smile to paint her gentle features as she looked on. Blake was something else to look at. He was intriguing, and Gwen found herself wanting to know more. She wanted to ask why his shoulders hunched the slightest bit whenever he stood up to change the radio, or when he got up to go for a cool swim when the sun and sweat sliding down his skin prompted him to. She wanted to ask why he hummed along to a song instead of singing outright along to the lyrics. She wanted to ask why his left hand shook sometimes when he worked on a particular piece of the arch he was building. She wanted to ask why he suddenly looked her way whenever it did, as if to see if she caught the movement. Gwen would avert her eyes every time, to give the impression that she hadn’t. She hated the way it felt like she was lying to him about something instead of the other way around. 

But whatever the reason, Gwen felt it best not to pry. Maybe it was an accident of his own, and Gwen knows how debilitating it can be to have to rehash one of the most horrific events to ever happen to you in life, especially when it happened to who you were as a performer, so she keeps silent, and closes her eyes, and wishes sleep to overcome her because if not, she’d stay awake forever to stare at this man.

And now, eyes shut tight, breathing relaxed and slow, mind faraway, and yet her heart still incredibly close, she knows that Blake is standing in front of her chair. The sounds of him working have long since stopped. She figures he went for one last swim, or to grab another beer from the house as she heard his retreating footsteps. But now he’s back. 

The sand is probably incredibly hot around his bare feet. Gwen can practically see him behind her closed eyelids. He’s right there, in only his trunks because she asked for his hat earlier to shield her eyes from the sun. There’s sand swiped across the perfect bridge of his nose, and the rise of his cheekbones because he’s a hardworking man, and the earth knows this, wants to be closer as a result. 

He won’t stop looking at her. She can feel his blue eyes penetrating. Right now, in what feels like the first time in forever, she can read his thoughts so clearly. He’s thinking how the sand she’s lying on is his. The chair, too. He’s thinking how the seaweed accumulating around them is the ocean’s, but the salt that slides off the putrid green is now his because it’s fallen into the ground, all around her, and that he owns as well. The air isn’t his, but it’s intruding on his property nonetheless, so it must be his too. She is in his space. Breathing the same air, taking all his time, basking in all his attention. So she must be his...right?

He’s the type of man who believes himself responsible for the things that he’s created, the things that depend on him, the very space that inhabits his mind, body, and soul, so why should she be any different?

Gwen shivers. 

Blake may be soft, and gentle, and filled with all the warmth in the world, but she has a feeling that the man would be relentless when it came to what was his. He’d be all-encompassing, hungry and therefore starved. 

Gwen wishes he’d just devour her and get it out of the way.

She feels him approach then, walking forward without hesitation, all of a sudden too near and not close enough. 

“Gwen,” he says softly, trying his best to wake her, not knowing that she’s been away from the edge of sleep for awhile now. “Gwen…” 

She doesn’t dare stir. She doesn’t give the impression that she can hear him, feel him,  _ see  _ him, because if she did, then she wouldn’t have felt Blake sit down in the sand beside her chair the next moment. His back to the ocean, something she can’t ever fathom Blake doing willingly, and yet, here he is, and Gwen feels like she’s accomplished something. 

She wants to stay this way forever, breathing in his presence, basking in his sun, lulled asleep by his waves, but she can’t, because he wants her to be by his side, wants her to be with him and not by herself, and so she plants herself firmly in that spot when she flutters her eyes open slowly, softly, and greets the pretty blue of the sky, of the ocean, of Blake.

His lazy smile is the only medicine she’ll ever need. If she hurts herself again, if she dives head first in that ugly, pitch black hole of despair, if she ever finds herself wanting for anything, she need only look at that incredible smile, and she’d be healed again. 

“You hungry,” he asks her quietly. 

Gwen’s eyes focus on the way the skin around his eyes stretch and crinkle. He’s squinting, and she looks down at her stomach, where his hat is lying. She took it off before falling asleep, wanting to feel the sun’s rays fan across her light skin. She’s lucky she didn’t get sunburn. 

Blake’s eyes look down to the cap, as well. He reaches for it then, his fingers slipping underneath the bill, intending to lift it quickly, but then he can feel the heat coming off her, and she can feel the heat coming off of him. Between the cloth of the hat and the skin of her stomach, his knuckles are suddenly covered in a blanket of warmth, millimeters from the bare strip of skin that is exposed and delicate, the bare strip that would flutter and constrict unexpectedly if he were to draw closer. 

Blake remains where he is, fingers still, breath held, and Gwen can see it on his face, the decision weighing him down, the split second he gives himself for rational thought to have a chance to win. 

Gwen doesn’t let it, for the next moment, she’s breathing, inhaling, just enough, just so her stomach raises to fill that last bit of space, just so she can feel the back of his hand brush against her softly. 

It lasts a lifetime, just long enough for her to wish for his hand to turn over, for his palm to slide across all of her hot skin, to burn her in ways the sun will never be able to.

She doesn’t want to let the breath go, because then she’ll have to let him go, but her need overpowers the moment, and Gwen is exhaling before she realizes what is happening. The contact is broken, and Gwen sees him rush to remove the hat from her finally. But Gwen has never been a selfish person. She’s never gone after anything but her music career, and that frustrates her to no end, so she does something she’s not used to. She  _ takes _ .

Another inhale, sharper than the one before, and Blake’s hand shakes. It’s his right, not his left, but it still reminds her of earlier. Gwen chances a look at him, but he’s staring down at the point where their bodies are touching, and before she can help it, Gwen exhales.

Her eyes shift past them, down him, and she sees his arousal so clearly from where he’s sitting next to her, from where he’s had to lean over to grab for the cursed garment, the only thing that’s managed to keep them like this, the only thing so far that's managed to pull them this close. 

He’s hard and wanting just from this little bit of contact. Gwen doesn’t know whether to be scared or grateful. She doesn’t understand how someone can do so much to her and yet take so little of her at the same time. 

Gwen holds her breath, waiting for the answer to come in between the moments she withholds her warmth, and the moments Blake refuses to seek it out. He does so gracefully, respectfully, so  _ manly,  _ because it takes a true gentleman to wait it out, to see what she wants, to anticipate it being completely different than his own desires. 

He won’t look at her, that much is clear, and he won’t move, that much is also clear. He wants her to breathe, to let go, but he also wants her to never give him any air again, because he knows he’d be taking all of the breaths that Adam has worked so hard to inhale from her himself.

He’s a good friend. 

It shouldn’t feel so much like she’s rewarding him when she lets the heat back, when she allows her skin to press against his hand again. It shouldn’t feel so much like home when he turns his hand over suddenly, knocking the hat into the sand, pressing along her flat stomach until he reaches the top of her bikini bottom. 

He finally lifts his chin, turning his head to look at her, eyes glazed and unseeing.

Gwen feels like she can walk on water. She wants to tell him as much, wants to shove him away, wants to grab his hand, wants to drag him out into the roaring sea, wants to tell him to stay on the beach while she tredges through the silky waves, eventually levitating high above the blue, toes dancing on top of the reflection. She thinks that’s the way God must feel. 

Invincible.

There’s a shrill ring that echoes into the air, startling them both, so much so that Gwen’s pulse quickens and Blake’s hand leaves her body for good this time. He stands up, turns his back on her, and reaches in his pocket for his phone. He answers on the third ring. 

“Hey, what’s up?” 

Gwen sits up slowly, eyes on his broad shoulders, the bare skin of his slick back. 

“It’s not my weekend.” 

Gwen can practically hear the frown in his voice. She stands up quietly and walks over to him. 

“Lola, I’m not--it’s not--” 

Gwen allows her fingers to dance across the length of his spine, entranced with the muscles that constrict and pulse at the feeling of her touch.

_ Who is Lola, Blake? Why don’t I know anything about you? _

“Let me talk to him.” Blake sighs, walking forward, just enough to put a couple of feet of space between them. Gwen longs to be by his side, at the very least allowed to reach out a hand and feel him in an instant.

She retreats, like the tide, and she knows he’s grateful to her because of it. 

The only thing that surprises her, is how easy it is to turn around again and know that he’s already staring back at her, phone still clutched tightly in his hand. 

Gwen wishes her feet would carry her far away from him, but all they do is stay planted, because they know that the same footprints she’s left in the sand, will be traced by ones much larger, much steadier, any moment now, and what will find her eventually is nothing close to what she’s known in the past. 

Maybe she doesn’t need a storm after all to wipe the rest away. 

Blake will take care of that all on his own.


	5. Exile and Chains To You Are Ever Dear

Gwen thinks of the irony. 

She thinks of the irony of convincing herself that she’s the only one with problems, the only one who needs fixing, knowing somewhere in the back of her mind, all along, that Blake wasn’t whole, and never was to begin with. She knew that somewhere along his strip of beach were pieces of himself lying in the sand, waiting to be remembered, waiting to be picked up, brushed off, placed back with the others. Why else would he be out here if not for the same reasons as her? 

She knew it deep down but actually being faced with the reality of it...Gwen’s never shied away from a broken man before, but something clutching desperately at her heart tells her not to get involved. She’d done it with Gavin, and as a result, she lost a part of herself that she still hasn’t found a way to get back. It would be the same with Blake. She knows it. She can feel it in her bones. She felt in her  _ soul  _ the moment he got off the phone with  _ Lola  _ and promptly told her that he had to go. Where? Gwen didn’t ask. It was just another man in her life needing to get away from her. 

_ Stop. _

Her insecurities rear their ugly heads once again, but Gwen won’t let them. She has no idea what transpired on that call, what prompted Blake to leave the beach in what she feels like is the first time since she arrived there. It could have been an emergency. He was talking about a person after all. 

_ Let me talk to him. _

No. She won’t allow herself to think the worst. The only thing she can let in is that one minute he was here, and the next minute he was gone, and Gwen isn’t surprised that she feels the loss of his absence. A part of her feels like he won’t ever come back, even though she knows how crazy that sounds. He kept reminding her after all...he’s waiting for the water to wash him away, and if it weren’t for the fact that the water hadn’t quite reached him yet, Gwen would have thought that standing there on the beach was the last time she’d ever lay eyes on Blake Shelton.

She’s proven wrong when there’s a knock on her door.

Gwen’s body tenses, and she sets down the glass of wine that she just poured for herself. Feeling a little ashamed, she thinks how it’s the fifth that she’s had, and flushes with embarrassment when she allows herself to think about the very first one she consumed at ten o’clock this morning.

A whole day without him and she’s suddenly an alcoholic. 

Gwen shakes her head and pads across the living room quietly until she gets to the side door of the house. There’s no need to be surprised at who it is since she can see him through the glass, standing barefoot, in nothing but an old pair of jeans, and a white t-shirt. His hair is wet, like he just came from a swim or a cold shower.

When she opens the door, she can tell that there’s so much that he wants to say to her. For starters, she sees it in his eyes,  _ I’m sorry.  _ Then she sees it in the way he sighs, tiredly, but never lets the passion in his eyes waver.  _ Please invite me in. I’ll beg.  _ And Gwen draws in a breath when she thinks back to yesterday morning. When she thinks back to her own silent apologies. Her own fevered thoughts and words, both in the safe confines of her head until he prodded and poked around where she wishes he didn’t but secretly wishes he always will.

His eyes draw a path down the length of her body, and that flush from earlier comes back suddenly, the realization that she’s done nothing today but get up, drink wine, eat some fruit, and listen to music on the lowest volume she could in order to still be able to hear the vibrations coming from the stereo. She’s dressed in nothing but a short pair of sleeping pants and a white, laced bra. Of course he’d be staring. 

She meets his eyes again, finally, and sees the blue darken. And then…

_ I’m sorry I pulled you in and then kept you out. _

She winces. It’s verbatim. It somehow hurts a lot more when she’s on the receiving end of it. But she doesn’t shy away from him. She can’t because she missed him too much. She can’t because the thought of sending him away now, when she’s already fallen into his crushing waves a long time ago, when she’s already wet and cold and barely treading water, when she knows that he’ll be able to warm her up again, pull her back onto the shore, breathe life into an otherwise lifeless existence, Gwen can’t refuse him at all. Most of all, she can’t refuse herself. 

Gwen opens the door just a hair, just enough to tell him that he can come this far, but no further, not until--

He takes a step closer, until he’s no longer outside, until he’s right in front of her, pressed against the front of her chest, hands bracketed on either side of the frame, head hung low. “I’m sorry.” 

_ There. _

He said it when she couldn’t. He says it when she knows she’ll die if he’ll make her say it back. He says it because it’s the only thing that will make her open the door all the way, the only thing that can push them past this pull and retreat. 

Gwen clears her throat on instinct, because it’s become natural for her to hate the way her voice sounds in the presence of others. She finds that she doesn’t care when his eyes are this pleading, this vulnerable. 

“I’m sorry,” she whispers. 

It’s like a dam breaks, and she’s suddenly pushed out of the way at the last minute. She sees a slow, tired smile blossoming on Blake’s face, and she knows instantly that it was him that saved her from this crushing onslaught of feelings threatening to fill up her lungs, threatening to drown her entire chest. She feels like the seaweed outside, like the broken seashells embedded in the sand.

She wants to bury herself inside of him and dreams that when she eventually does that he’ll tell her to stay there forever. 

Blake takes charge now that he’s not the one standing outside like a dog, pleading for its owner to let him back in. And Gwen finds that she doesn’t mind when he encircles his large fingers around her wrist gently and leads her into the living room, settling her down on the armchair before disappearing into the kitchen. He must have put two and two together when he saw the wine glass, and dutifully brought it back out to her when he came back to the living room. He’s carrying his own beer when he settles onto the sofa next to her, his long legs bending as he rocks forward to set his drink down on the table.

“It’s going to rain.” He says after a while, and suddenly, he’s moving again, off of the couch, and down onto the floor.

Gwen waits for direction, or an explanation maybe, but he’s loosened his grip on the reigns here, so it’s completely up to her to take a hold of them again. 

She moves to sit beside him, drawing her knees up to her chest. His are sprawled out before them, and all Gwen can think is how  _ long  _ he is, everywhere. 

Her blush returns ten fold. 

Blake stares up at the ceiling, oblivious. She stares at his profile, but he doesn’t seem to notice, not even when he lifts the beer bottle to his mouth and takes a rather long sip. After long moments, his eyes still focused on nowhere in particular, Blake presses his lips into a thin line before exhaling and saying, “Lola is my ex wife.” 

Gwen forces herself to turn her head and she closes her eyes against the images playing behind her thin lashes. Even behind them, she sees him happy, and then she sees him miserable. She sees another woman that isn’t her, another woman that had every right to be loved by this man, knowing that she has no right herself to ever ask for the same. 

“We have three boys together.” 

She opens her eyes and sees the beginnings of light rain falling outside, hitting the window so softly, she thinks the water is actually regretful, as if it didn’t have any other option but to wet and stain them. She thinks Blake feels the same way. Regretting. Staining. Ruining. 

“She remarried recently and my youngest...he’s had a hard time with it...doesn’t wanna go with them to Aaron’s homestate.” 

_ It’s not my weekend.  _

Gwen takes a sip of her wine and darts a glance at Blake’s profile again. He’s running his teeth across his lower lip. It makes him look younger. 

“It’s not my weekend but I...I can’t tell him no. I  _ didn’t  _ tell him no.” 

She realizes a multitude of things at once. 

The simple kind of life she’d been praying and hoping for, was always just within her reach. She’s just never reached far enough to grasp it, and if she did, she let it go too quickly. Blake hadn’t done that. Blake had gotten married, had a family, and even if it didn’t work out in the end, Blake had something she didn’t. 

Even if he lets the water touch him, and pull him away someday, somewhere, someone out there, his  _ kids,  _ will miss him, miss the impressions his feet left in the sand on this strip of beach, miss the way he transformed the very breeze that passes through the open windows. 

Adam would miss him. Even his ex-wife would.  _ I’d miss him.  _

_ I’d miss you.  _

_ You were with her, then you weren’t, now you’re with me, one day you won’t be. But I need you. I want you. Maybe, just maybe, you can learn to need me to. _

Gwen takes in a deep breath, realizing a hard truth so abruptly she swears the wind could never knock her over this hard...

_ I won’t see you.  _

He’ll be with his son. And she might not have kids but she knows that you don’t introduce them to new people you don’t even know well enough yourself. She knows that Blake will take this time to be with his son, who needs him and wants him all the same, just as she does. She knows that she’ll be a little lost without him, and he knows that too. She knows that she’ll get inside of her head, just as she’s done before, and all the progress that she’s made here, with him, it’ll be wasted, all because of one weekend, because of one man, and one child. 

_ I sound crazy. I’m overreacting. But am I really? It’s been too long since I’ve opened up, since I’ve allowed myself to speak to anyone, since I’ve let myself  _ **_hope._ ** _ How do I pass the time now when I’ve just gotten used to wanting to spend all my time with you, even if we don’t say anything, even if we don’t do anything. How do I keep on this side of the beach, knowing I’ll be able to hear you outside, feel you when the breeze caresses my skin, see you when I look out the window and hope you turn around to look back. Blake...Blake, I’m lonely.  _

There. She said it. 

Gwen Stefani, acclaimed singer and song-writer, pop and ska icon, respected friend and devoted daughter, famous ex-girlfriend, adored by many and all, is lonely. 

_ You made me feel less alone in this world.  _

She’s gone numb for awhile now, but she feels him when he shifts, feels his thick arm slide behind her shoulders, along the couch, until his fingers are curved around her, sliding into her soft hair and tipping her head towards him. The rain falls violently now, and she feels his lips press against her temple. He doesn’t kiss the skin there, just simply holds her against his mouth.

_ I’m alone.  _

“I’m not leaving you.” 

Gwen wants to believe him, because everyone else already has, she almost left herself, for a moment there, until she found him on this beach and he refused to allow her the privilege of doing so. So she allows him to placate her, and accepts what he’s saying now and tries to forget what he said before. 

_ I didn’t tell him no, but I’m not leaving you. _

“Sit here with me until the rain stops.” He says, and Gwen forgets that she’s terrified of him, forgets that he truly terrifies the living shit out of her, and relaxes into his touch. 

Blake’s shoulder is solid and rounded with firm muscle, and as her head inevitably drops onto the horizontal plane of him, she can smell the scent of his soap. 

_ Cold shower then, not a swim.  _

His fingers rub across the dip in her back, and then up again to disappear into her hair, and she shudders. His jaw and neck are rough and darkened with stubble, and when she shifts slightly, she can feel it against her cheek. 

“You want the rest of your wine?” He urges quietly.

She nods and he brings the glass to her lips, and Gwen would blush again if her body wasn’t already in a permanent state of warmth. When she downs the last several mouthfuls, Blake takes the glass away, sets it by his hip, and returns back to the gentle stroking of his fingernails along her spine.

He’s so good, so kind. He’s comforting her, and regretfully, now, she wants to be the one to wet them, stain them, ruin them, with the press of her mouth along his neck. She wants to bury her face in the crook of him, wants to slip her own hands underneath his shirt, wants to feel him firm and hot underneath her soft palms. She wants to know the ridges of his abdomen, wants to feel all his muscles contract under her touch, because she’d touch him just right, just like he deserves, just like he’s doing right now with her. 

“ _ Blake _ ,” she groans, before she can stop herself. 

The rain intensifies, and with it, her need. 

His fingers slip down her neck and then back towards her ear. She wonders what he’d do if she slid over him now, if he’d welcome it or push it away, if he’d cup her breast through her bra and just look her in the eyes because they shouldn’t but they want to. She wonders if he’d look at her desperately, needing, urging, and let her know that he’d take care of her, whatever she needed, he’d be there. He’d always be there. 

They shouldn’t and yet she can’t think of any reasons not to. 

He doesn’t belong to Adam, or a wife, or the world she comes from and can’t imagine ever going back to now that she’s had this night with him where the rain doesn’t stop and the thought of ruining them doesn’t scare her so much like it did before. 

Suddenly, her eyes close, and she feels the wine hit her, the exhaustion creeps into her bones, and she hears him,  _ You want the rest of your wine? _

She clutches the fabric of his shirt tightly. 

_ You did this on purpose. To make me sleep. To make me want but can’t have. What are you so afraid of? The water? The warmth? Is that why you take cold showers? Don’t you want me like I want you?  _

“Be here…” She mumbles brokenly, hoarsely,  _ Be here when I wake up,  _ is what she meant to say _. _

“Goodnight, Gwen.” 

The last thing she recalls is his lips in her hair. The press of him feels like an apology. His lips are probably wet, they probably leave a stain of hope and regret, it’ll most likely ruin her in the morning.

He’ll most likely teach her to swim while drowning her in the process. She doesn’t miss the irony in that either. 

*

She wakes with a start.

He’s next to her, lying on his side, arm still wrapped around her tiny frame, stoic expression still clouding his handsome face. They’re no longer in the living room, instead, they’re in the bedroom, Adam’s bedroom, and Gwen can’t remember how he got her there, or when exactly during the night. 

It’s a crisp morning, the early hours of it judging by the rising sunlight, and the quietness of the wind. Not even the birds are up yet. 

Gwen’s eyes travel up and across his guarded face, and his blue eyes narrow somewhat as he takes her in. He looks like he didn’t sleep at all. 

He looks the way she used to feel after the initial accident. 

The tension in her shoulders rise like tides and constrict around the heart of her walls like shackles. 

“Tell me,” she whispers, one finger gently sliding over the planes of his chest, palm stopping defiantly over the skin that protects his heart.  _ Tell me about your past. Tell me about your kids. Tell me about your ex. Tell me what’s bothering you, right now. _

Blake closes his blue eyes, and Gwen can guess when his eyelids draw tight that he’s focusing on the sounds coming from outside, trying to take comfort where there is none, because there is nothing outside that can rival what she gives him indoors. She begs him to take solace inside of her.

His hand slides down her spine, and without thinking, when he pulls her an inch closer to him, Gwen goes willingly, gladly. 

“When I was eighteen, I moved to Nashville. I wanted to be a country artist, and the only way to do that was to go where the music was being made...I stayed with a couple that were old friends of the family. At the recording label I was signed to, I met a girl.” 

Gwen drew the letters to his ex wife’s name across his t-shirt silently, and was rewarded with a chaste kiss to her forehead. When Blake drew back, he exhaled heavily. 

“Lola’s father worked there as a technician.” His fingertips dance along her spine delicately as he says, “She didn’t even give me the time of day back then. Not at first. She pawned me off to her best friend, Kaynette. I couldn’t blame her. I was a six foot five nobody with a mullet and twenty dollars to my name.” Gwen smiles at that as she continues to draw nonsensical patterns along his shirt-cladded skin. “Well, we dated for all of two months before I got ideas of proposing. During that time I used to see Lola almost everyday at the label. She worked the front desk to help pay for her books for her classes. She was going to school to be a lawyer....it was the highlight of my day lookin’ back on it. Seeing her every morning, talking to her every chance I got. I wrote songs about her and pretended like they were about Kaynette ‘cause I didn’t want to admit it to myself.” 

Gwen’s fingers stopped their ministrations. She held her breath, hoping he didn’t share something awful, something that she couldn’t understand, because she’ll never reason or make excuses for betrayal. Ever. 

“Lola caught wind of me buying a ring, and one day she just came out with it. Asked me right then and there on a Saturday morning if I’d lost my mind. Told me I couldn’t propose to Kaynette. Told me she thought she was crazy to even like me, crazy to even consider being with me, but she couldn’t help it. So I broke up with Kay in the best way I knew how.” 

Gwen tilts her head up at him, a questioning glint in her dark pupils. 

“I started being an ass until she eventually got tired and broke up with me herself.” 

Gwen stifles a horrified laugh in his shoulder, and he chuckles with her, his whole body shaking with mirth. “I know, I know. Juvenile. But I’d rather her believe she was breakin’ my heart instead of the other way around...Anyways, me and Lola had moved in together less than a week of dating. I finally had a number one on country radio, and then we got engaged, then married, then pregnant. All in the same year. I was nineteen when I became a father and a mildly successful country singer.” 

Gwen’s stomach rhythmically presses against his as she breathes, and she relaxes instead of tenses when his left hand moves from the small of her back to the dip behind her right thigh. He doesn’t rub or move his nails over the exposed skin there, just settles the weight of him on her, and that is nothing if not peaceful in her mind’s eye. 

“Tell me,” she whispers again, this time, moving her own hand down the planes of his chest and over his stomach, stopping just above the top of his pants.

He exhales, “My firstborn, Kolt, he’s twenty three. He’s in med school.” 

Gwen can’t hide the surprise that transforms her sleep-ridden face. 

“Yeah, I’m not sure he’s mine either.” Blake says, revelling in her unfiltered, inhibited laughter. Gwen sometimes forgets to shield herself around him. She should be more on guard, because her voice is still broken, but it's hard to keep him out when he’s so good at drawing her in.

“But he’s smart. Always has been….He’s got my eyes and messy hair. Doesn’t give one single crap about what he wears or how he looks to the world...He’s funny, too, really funny but...Kolt doesn’t have a lot of friends. He doesn’t like anybody really except for his brothers, and his girlfriend, which surprised the hell out of everyone, to be honest.” 

She grins, coaxing him to tell her more about his sons. 

“And my second born, Zachary, is twenty-one. Just turned twenty-one, so he’s enjoying life right now to say the least. He’s finishing up his last year at Stanford. He has no idea what he wants to do with his life but he’s got a cool college band that I never had when I was his age so I’m letting his early life crisis slide for the time being...He’s the spitting image of Lola. I mean, so much so that I look at him sometimes, and can’t believe she ever married me.” 

Her eyebrows rise, and Blake struggles to conceal another deep chuckle. It rattles the both of them. Gwen thinks she might be in Heaven. 

“My youngest, Austin, I think he’s the mailman’s. He looks nothing like me or Lola.” He says, and Gwen hides her laugh in his chest. She hopes he feels the vibrations of her all the way in his heart, past all that thick muscle and tough skin. “I actually see a lot of Lola’s father in him. He’s a great kid, Gwen. He wants to be a cop...eventually get bumped up to a detective or something like that. He’s sixteen….I can’t believe how fast it goes sometimes...he used to be the one to crawl in my lap and stay there for hours without complaining or wanting to move.” 

Gwen’s hands crinkle the lower hem of his shirt.

“I know he’s having a hard time with his mom remarrying and...just some other stuff but it kills me that I can’t make it any easier for him,” he continues, looking down at her properly after awhile of staring off into the distance, “Not like how I can with you.”

_ I can make it easier for you,  _ is what he doesn’t say completely. 

Her smile comes out of nowhere. Not the kind you give to everyone, or even the kind you give to yourself. It isn’t boisterous or vain; instead it’s gentle, delicate beyond anything she’s ever allowed herself to feel, because as much as she’s always been this girl, the kind to lay down in feathers and be caressed by much harder hands, the world knows her to be tougher than that, knows her hands to be rougher than they really are.

They release Blake, but only to pull him closer the next instance, fingers gliding along the heated skin of his neck and face, dragging him closer and closer, like water catching rocks in a low tide, and her hands disappear into his thick curls like limbs falling in water for the first time, and if her once red lips could leave stains on his perfectly soft mouth, they’d be like the salt from the ocean once it’s dried in the sun.

He stops her just before they can crash into one another. It leaves her breathless. It leaves her aching. She stares into his blue eyes, and they’re so close that her vision blurs just at the edges.

“ _ That _ won’t make things any easier for you,” he says, voice thick with apology.

Her back shudders and then stills. 

There’s no fire, but Gwen suddenly feels like he started one in her chest, just last night. The seconds pass, and the flames are slowly dying right in front of her. It’s on its last embers and he won’t add any more wood this morning. 

Gwen shakes her head. “You’re the only one I’ve let in since it happened.” 

_ I’m talking to you, now. No whispering, no hiding, no retreating. _

She doesn’t even cringe or flinch at the raw sounds of her voice. It’s ugly, it’s brutal, but it’s all she has to work with. He needs to hear her when she says that it’s  _ him _ of all people she let close. He can’t deny her now. 

“You’re the only person that’s been good for me since I lost myself. The only one who found a way to keep me from disappearing completely.”

Blake shakes his head but she tightens her grip on his hair. 

_ I don’t understand. If you’re the only one, then this should make perfect sense to us both. You’re the only logical choice. And if it's not you, then it's not anyone. _

He takes a finger to her mouth and shuts it promptly.  _ Don’t do any more damage today. Take it slow. Take it easy. Just don’t take it that far. Not with me, and not right now.  _

Gwen wants to scream. 

Blake blinks. He breathes. He looks her straight in the eye. “I wouldn’t be able to keep going if I started. So don’t make me.  _ Please. _ ” He hardly moves at all. His voice is just the purposeful movement of his lips and the manipulation of air. It shakes her to her core.  _ This  _ is what rejection looks like. She’s never really known it before. Forget Gavin or Tony. Forget Adam, who she constantly rejects. It's this. It’s him. It’s Blake. 

“This is all I know how to do, now. This is all I should ever be able to do. And I wish I could tell you more. I wish I could make you understand, Gwen. Just...you think you want more from me, but I can’t handle giving you any less if I did….you don’t deserve any less.” 

She can’t convince him. Maybe tomorrow, maybe a week from now, maybe not ever. But this morning, right now in his embrace, she can do no more but lie there with him and take it. Take his rejection and be grateful, because she’d rather have that than be alone.

_ You’re my friend. We’re friends now. Partners. Because no one should have to swim this big, scary, ocean alone. We’re friends.  _

They’re childish words, said without any difficulty. And Gwen would be more grateful if they weren’t words that even Adam could repeat back to her. They don’t mean what she wants them too. Those words don’t bind her to Blake, they ensure their mutual destruction if they were to ever really break from one another. 

She fell in love with him, she thinks. She fell in love with him. It wasn’t the conventional way. It wasn’t the way she always dreamed of. But she did. Slowly, agonizingly, thoroughly, fell in love with the way he made her try to love herself, with the way he didn’t try to be loved back, with the way he selflessly offered his support and his kindness without expecting any of it to be returned to him. 

She shakes her head, now. They’re not friends. They’re not partners swimming in the big, blue, ocean. He’s a man and she’s a woman, and Gwen doesn’t want to tread in any more stagnant waters with people she’d willingly drown under bigger waves for. She doesn’t want to be everything and nothing to this man in some years from now. 

She didn’t come out here to be saved by him, but now that she is, now that she sees that that is exactly what’s happening, she can’t pretend to want anything less, to not try for anything more. 

The problem with wanting more with someone means they have to meet you halfway. When Blake’s hands remove themselves from her skin, he’s going in the opposite direction of want, and she can’t do anything about that, not really, not this morning. 

And when he moves to get out of her bed, out of Adam’s bed, Gwen can’t do anything about that either. 

And when he presses one last lingering kiss to the top of her nose, when he walks out of the room with his head hung just a little bit lower than before, Gwen can’t even begin to find a way to make that right for them, again. 

Maybe tomorrow, or the next day. Maybe tonight or next evening. 

But not this morning. 

Not ever this quiet morning.


End file.
